Harry Potter and the Methods of Chaos
by JBean210
Summary: A sequel to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres owns a global corporation that is poised and ready for the Singularity, or so it seems, until a journalist appears wanting to question Harry's motivations.
1. The Journalist

**Chapter One  
><strong>**The Journalist**

_Published 10/14/2011_

"_Recognition code 927, I am a potato."_

_=ooo=_

The journalist carrying a small briefcase looked up at the tall, newly-completed office building, a towering edifice of steel and glass in the heart of London's business district, contemplating his assignment and the man he was to interview today, hopefully. It had not been easy, getting this assignment — his publisher had dealt with an almost overwhelming number of delays, reschedules, and missed appointments, just to get him in to see the man who sat at the top of this monument to the resources of TBC Enterprises, Ltd.

The journalist smiled grimly at the irony of a corporation of this size identified as "limited." TBC Enterprises had been at the vanguard of many business endeavors since its incorporation thirteen years ago. In the past few years its interests had begun to favor the fields of nanotechnology — creating smaller and smaller structures for use in advanced manufacturing and the emerging field of biotechnology. Already the company was one of the leaders in the field in Britain, and it was vigorously pursuing a place of prominence in the global nanotech market.

That was the reason for today's interview. He was here to talk with Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, the Chairman and CEO of TBC Enterprises. Mr. Potter-Evans-Verres had an impressive resume — he'd graduated from Oxford, where his father, Professor Michael Verres-Evans, was then an eminent professor of biochemistry. He'd had his secondary education at a private school located in Scotland, though details on his time there were sketchy — the name of the school wasn't even known. It was a fact that he'd overcome an unusual nervous system condition, a 26-hour sleep cycle that was known in the medical literature as _hypernychthemeral syndrome_, or more commonly as non-24 sleep-wake syndrome, which kept him awake two extra hours every day. This had been cited by his office as one of the reasons for the delays in interviewing him. Privately, however, the journalist considered this more of an excuse than a reason.

Entering the building, he took the lift up to the main offices of TBC, which he found took up the entire floor. Stepping from the lift, the journalist looked around, trying to determine where Potter-Evans-Verres' office would be. A short distance from the lift was a counter where a young woman watched him unobtrusively, waiting for him to approach. Well, who was he to disappoint her?

"Good morning," the journalist said, smiling as he stepped up to the counter. "I'm Mr. Monroe, from _Singularity Today_ magazine. I have an appointment with Mr. Harry Potter-Evans-Verres."

The young woman nodded and glanced at a nearby screen. "Yes," she said, after what seemed a longer than necessary wait. "Your appointment was to be over lunch with Mr. Potter — you're an hour early."

"Sorry," Monroe said, smiling apologetically. "I wasn't sure when he took lunch. I decided early was better than late."

The young woman nodded but did not smile. "I'll take to you his office," she said, and led Monroe through a convoluted path of desks, corridors, and cubicles, to a waiting area nearly on the opposite side of the floor. Next to a large, highly polished oaken door sat a pleasant-looking young woman, a redhead this time, who stood at their approach.

"Mr. Monroe, this is Mrs. Thomas, Mr. Potter's personal assistant," she said, introducing them, and the redhead shook his hand politely. Her grip was firm for a woman, Monroe noted, as he took stock of her athletic build.

"Thank you, Debbie," Mrs. Thomas nodded at her, which Debbie returned then walked away. The redhead's eyes followed her for a moment before turning back to Monroe with an apologetic look on her face.

"Terribly sorry for the mix-up," she said, and Monroe gave her a puzzled frown. "Mr. Potter is very busy this morning — he may not have time for your interview, Mr. Monroe."

Monroe sighed softly. Another delay, why was he not surprised? "Would it be a terrible inconvenience if I waited, in case his schedule clears up? My editor may tear what's left of his hair out if he hears we have to delay the interview with Mr. — eh, Potter — another month."

The redhead looked dubious. "I can't guarantee anything, Mr. Monroe. Mr. Potter is quite busy, as I've said, and you may be here for some time before he has any time to spare for you. However," she continued, as my countenance fell, "I see no reason why you cannot wait, if that's your preference."

"Wonderful!" Monroe beamed at her. "That would be fantastic. I can review my notes for the interview while I wait." The journalist looked around. The waiting area was not large, with only a small though comfortable-looking divan and a few plush chairs for furnishings. He looked around for any coffee or tea stations or some kind of refreshment or vending area, but saw nothing. This level of TBC Enterprises appeared to be all business.

The redhead seemed to read his intention. "Would you like something to drink, Mr. Monroe?" she inquired. "We have tea, coffee, and soda."

"A soda would be fine," he told her. "A Pepsi or Coke, whichever you have."

"We have both," she smiled. "Which would you —?"

The polished oak door opened and a man with short black hair that stuck out in several places, with oval wireframe glasses, poked his head out at them, turning to the redhead. "Ginny," he said shortly. "I need the McLaughlin report on my desk by lunch, please." His eyes flicked momentarily to Monroe, but he did not acknowledge his presence.

"Yes, sir," Mrs. Thomas replied. "I'll have that to you in a jiffy."

Harry Potter's head (for that was who the man was, his face was instantly recognizable) disappeared and the door closed. Ginny Thomas's eyes did not quite meet Monroe's as she said, "I'll get that soda —"

"A Pepsi will be fine," Monroe told her, then sat in one of the waiting area chairs, placing his briefcase on the floor next to him. He was smiling smugly to himself. The cat was out of the bag now; there was _no way_ he was going anywhere until Harry Potter walked out of that office and he'd at least tried to talk to him. He sat down on the divan, pulling a small notepad from his jacket. In fact, he might even consider going through the oaken door to see him _now_, once Mrs. Thomas left her desk for any reason.

But instead of hurrying off to get his drink, she walked around behind her desk, bent over, and came up with a glass of ice and a can of soda. Monroe blinked, wondering if there was a mini-fridge behind the desk he hadn't seen.

She handed him the glass, pouring the fizzing liquid into it from the can. "Mr. Potter will be with you when he becomes available," she said, a bit uncomfortably, then returned to her seat. Monroe watched her for a few minutes, waiting to see whether she would leave her desk or not, but she had gotten on the phone and was talking too softly for him to hear. He finally shrugged, sipped his soda, and began reviewing his questions for the interview.

Time passed slowly, almost tortuously. Monroe kept glancing up at the door to Potter's office, wondering what the man was doing in there, as Ginny at the receptionist's desk made call after call, typing on her computer in between. Other people came and went, dropping off folders or other materials at her desk, though it never seemed to become cluttered. Monroe was watching surreptitiously, trying to discover where she was putting all that paperwork, but the nearest he could figure she was putting it into drawers in her desk — drawers which should shortly be filled to bursting, even assuming they were empty when she began. It was a mystery.

It was only around 11:15 by the time Monroe had reviewed his notes for the third time, and put them away. He checked his watch every few minutes thereafter until it was nearly noon. Would Potter go to lunch, or was he planning on dodging this interview as well, just as he had dodged his past three appointments? Time stretched on, past noon, then twelve-fifteen, then twelve-thirty. Finally, Monroe stood. This was becoming ridiculous. They might throw him out, but he was going into that office.

"What are you —?" Mrs. Thomas began, then stood as Monroe walked past her desk, gripped the doorknob and began to turn it. "Wait, you can't —!"

Monroe ignored her. "Mr. Potter-Evans-Verres," he began, as the door swung aside. "I'm James Monroe and —" and he stopped, looking around the empty room; it seemed larger, somehow, than Monroe would have expected for a corner office. Potter was gone, somehow. The office itself was quite elegant, with a large desk of polished oak, nearly devoid of any paperwork or other materials, and an expensive-looking leather sofa along one wall, with matching end tables at either end. On the other wall was a set of bookcases, filled with books. Monroe could see at a glance that they covered a wide range of subjects — even some with strange titles with words like Transfiguration, Legilimency, and Potioneering. What were those?

For the moment, however, Monroe ignored the books, determined to find where Harry Potter-Evans-Verres had gone. He strode over to the other door and opened it, finding a toilet, shower and wardrobe, but no other exit. Unless he was hiding in the shower (he wasn't — Monroe opened the door to check) there seemed to be no way he could have left the office.

"Mr. Monroe!" Ginny had finally caught up with him. She had a rather stern expression on her face that momentarily gave Monroe pause. "I must ask you to leave Mr. Potter's office or —"

"Or he'll refuse to see me?" Monroe finished. "He's already done that several times now. I'm starting to feel a bit persecuted here, Miss —"

"_Mrs_. Thomas," she corrected, her voice still stern. "I'm sorry about that, but it cannot be helped. When Mr. Potter is busy he has very little time for anything else."

"I suppose not," Monroe agreed. He was now looking around the room, for any sign of where Harry Potter had gone. "But it would be simpler if he simply declined an interview instead of these cat-and-mouse games he's playing with my magazine. _Singularity Today_ is read by most of the major players in the GNR and MEMS fields, and we _thought_ Mr. Potter wanted an opportunity to put this company in the limelight of the push for the Singularity. If that's not the case then I can write that he declined to be interviewwww…" His voice trailed off.

Monroe felt a momentary disorientation and shook his head, trying to clear the sudden fuzziness he felt. He looked around. The room he was standing in was unfamiliar to him. "What — what was I just saying?" He asked the young woman, a redhead, who was putting something back into a pocket in her skirt, a woman whose name he couldn't remember.

"You were just saying you had to leave for lunch," the woman said smoothly, taking him by the arm and steering him toward the door. "I'm sorry we had to postpone the interview yet again, but these things happen, you know."

"Uh, yes," Monroe said uncertainly, being led out into a small reception area. "That's…too bad, isn't it?"

"One of the girls will escort you to the lift," the young woman said briefly. "Have a pleasant day, Mr. Monroe."

"Um, thanks," Monroe said, still confused. At the edge of the reception area, however he stopped. "There's something I'm supposed to remember…" he muttered, looking around as if doing so would help him recall what it was.

"I'm sure you'll think of it before long," the redhead said, signaling for a girl at a nearby desk to come over. "Debbie here will take you to the lift." She noticed his briefcase next to his chair in the waiting area. "I'll get your briefcase for you."

"Okay," Monroe nodded, then turned to her with a sudden glint in his eyes. "I remember now! _Recognition code 927_, _I am a potato_."

Ginny started. "_What_ did you say?" she asked, staring at him in shock, his briefcase still in her hands.

"Recognition code 927, I am a potato," Monroe repeated. "It means I've forgotten something…"

"_Where_ did you hear that phrase?" another voice asked. Monroe and Ginny turned to see Mr. Harry Potter-Evans-Verres striding from his office. He was giving Monroe a very odd look.

Monroe shrugged. "It's just … something I use to remind myself I've forgotten something," he replied. "If I find myself thinking it, it means I've been saying it over and over in my head, to remind myself that I've forgotten something, somehow."

"Do you remember what you forgot?" Potter asked.

"Well, now that I've seen you, sir," Monroe answered. "I recall that we had an interview scheduled for today." He looked at Ginny. "I'm not sure why the young lady here was about to escort me to the exit."

"Lunch is nearly over, anyway," Ginny said quickly. "We should probably reschedule the interview to another time — next week, perhaps?"

Potter was still giving Monroe an odd look. "No," he said, slowly. "Now is as good a time as any. We can have something brought in." His expression suddenly became normal. "Does that sound good to you, Mr. Monroe?"

"Uh, sure," Monroe nodded, still looking a bit confused. "I'm game."

They started toward the office door, but Monroe stopped, turning around. "My briefcase," he said, "I have some release forms for you to sign —"

"We'll take care of them after the interview," Potter said, smoothly. "Ginny, will you keep Mr. Monroe's briefcase at your desk, please?"

"Yes, sir," Ginny nodded. "I'm about to go to lunch, if that's okay."

Potter nodded. "Of course. Have a good lunch." He led Monroe back into his office. He gestured to the leather sofa and Monroe sat down at one end, while he took the other. "Our meals will be ready shortly," he told Monroe, settling back comfortably in the soft leather. "Meanwhile, we can get a little better acquainted. I suppose you know something about me?"

"Oh, yes," Monroe agreed, smiling. "Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, one of the ten richest individuals in the world, and the Chairman and CEO for the largest closely held corporation in the western hemisphere. You were adopted by the eminent Professor of biochemistry at Oxford, Michael Verres-Evans, and his wife Petunia Evans-Verres, thirty-five years ago after the death of your natural parents, James and Lily Potter, in some kind of car accident, is that correct?"

Harry nodded. "Old news, of course," he said, almost dismissively. "I'm sure that's not what your readers at _Singularity Today_ want to hear about, though."

"A little human interest never hurts," Monroe pointed out. "People would be interested in your sleep-cycle disorder, for example, and how you manage to deal with it with your busy schedule."

"I do okay," Harry replied, shortly. "Before we begin the interview, I do have a few questions for _you_."

"Really?" Monroe looked bemused. "Questions about the interview, I presume?"

"No," Harry shook his head. "Questions about you."

Monroe laughed nervously. "I thought I was interviewing _you_, Mr. Potter."

Harry smiled disarmingly. "Think of it as getting to know me better by telling me about yourself," he suggested.

Monroe shifted on the couch, looking thoughtful. "What would you like to know about me?" he asked, a bit of worry in his voice.

Harry held up a placating hand. "Oh, nothing deep or dark, Mr. Monroe! We're just getting a little better acquainted. I think it will help break the ice between us during the interview. For example, how did you come up with that mnemonic you mentioned earlier, that 'recognition code 927, I am a potato'?"

Monroe looked nonplussed for a few moments. "I never thought about it," he said at last. "It's just a mnemonic phrase I use."

"But why _that_ particular phrase?" Harry pressed. "Did you ever hear someone mention it before you used it?"

"Is it important?" Monroe asked in a puzzled tone. "I don't see what your interest —"

There was a soft chime that seemed to come from the middle of the room, although Monroe didn't see anything there that could have made the sound. In the ceiling, perhaps?

Harry stood and moved toward the bookcases. Monroe stood as well, but didn't move; he watched as Harry approached one of the bookcases. Harry reached into the bookcase, and two of the sets of shelves opened outward, revealing a hidden room. "That's pretty cool," Monroe said, sounding impressed.

"Lunch is served," Harry said, gesturing toward the room with a slight bow.

_Come into my parlor_, was Monroe's sudden impulsive thought, but he smiled at the invitation and entered the room. It wasn't large, but there was a polished cherry dinner table and four chairs in the middle, with a server along one wall. In the far corner there was another door, but it was closed. One the table were two place settings, meals already in place with steam rising from the food. A basket of rolls and two decanters were placed between the plates.

At another gesture from Harry, Monroe sat down in the nearest chair, then glanced at his meal. On his plate was a filet mignon, bacon wrapped around the edge, and cognac sauce on top of it, along with a loaded baked potato and asparagus spears. "Filet mignon," Monroe said as Harry took his seat opposite him. "Very nice. I'm surprised about the baked potato, though."

"I thought you would appreciate a 'meat and potatoes' lunch," Harry said, preparing his napkin. "Considering that you're American."

Monroe looked bemused. "Is my accent that bad?"

"Oh, no," Harry demurred. "But I checked up on you," he added, reaching for a decanter. "Some wine with your steak?"

Monroe nodded, an odd look on his face. As Harry poured the wine, he asked, "Checked up on _me_? For an _interview_?" He chuckled nervously. "Did I pass?"

Harry made an "ehh" gesture with his shoulders. "Not altogether," he replied, candidly. "Some details about your past are a bit sketchy."

Monroe leaned forward. "Some details about _your_ past are sketchy as well, sir. For example the school you attended in Scotland between 1991 and 1998 — no one seems to know where it was, exactly, or even what its name was. You went right from there, wherever it was, into Oxford, where you graduated with an Executive MBA and a Masters in Theoretical Physics. In three years."

"It was three and a half years," Harry noted. "I thought you were here to talk about the Singularity, Mr. Monroe."

"So did I," Monroe retorted. "But you've got books in that bookcase out there on stuff like Transfiguration, Legilimency and Potioneering. None of that sounds like theoretical physics, and certainly not like business administration. What's all that about?"

"I read a lot of different subjects," Harry explained, while simultaneously failing to explain. "Besides," he smiled thinly. "You weren't supposed to see those books — I would have removed them before inviting you into my office. But you decided not to wait for my invitation; I'm starting to wonder whether this interview is a good idea or not."

"That's up to you," Monroe said, flatly. "But there _will_ be an article in _Singularity Today_ about you, one way or another."

Harry leaned back against the sofa. "That sounds pretty ominous," he remarked. "A threat?"

"More like a promise," Monroe replied. "My editor wants an article about your company, whether an interview with you is in it or not. If you want to let our readers know what your vision on the Singularity is and the role TBC will play in achieving it, you can agree to the interview. If not, well…" he shrugged.

Harry chuckled briefly. "More like a threat, then," he retorted. "I'll tell you what. I'll give the interview if you'll tell me where you heard that mnemonic you used earlier."

Monroe shook his head. "Mr. Potter, I told you, I don't know where that came from!"

"Ve haf vays uf makingk you tok," Harry sneered, in a bad German accent.

Monroe looked at him strangely. "You're kidding. That sounds like it's right out of Hogan's Heroes." Monroe wondered if Harry even knew the reference.

"I was thinking more like Jack Bauer," Harry replied. "If he was a German. And not very fluent in English. But I'm kidding, anyway — well, at least, mostly kidding. We _do_ have a way to recover the memory."

"What? TMS? Memory drugs?" Monroe looked apprehensive. "I'm not sure I can agree to anything like that."

"It's nothing like that, I assure you," Harry replied. "In fact, I believe you will find it quite interesting."

Monroe swallowed a mouthful of potatoes, then leaned forward. "Well, maybe we should start with that, so I'll know what I'm getting into."

Harry put down his knife and fork, then steepled his fingers in front of him, staring at Monroe pensively. "Why don't we begin with the interview? _After_ we finish our lunch, if you don't mind — I'm a bit hungry."

=ooo=

"Oi! Ginny!"

Ginny Thomas sighed and turned toward the café where her brother, sitting at an outside table, had just rather crudely and unnecessarily yelled to get her attention. "I saw you, Ron, you don't have to shout like that."

"Just wanted to be sure you saw me," Ron said, as she sat down opposite him. There was already a pot pie in front of him, half consumed, and a bottle of butterbeer (which, Ginny assumed, was not his first). "I ordered you a salad, like you said," he added. "But they kept it in the kitchen 'til you got here."

"Great," Ginny snorted. "I've only got thirty minutes today." She slid her wand out of her skirt pocket and flicked it. A small parchment airplane popped out of the end and flew into the café, giving the servers notice she'd arrived.

Ron laughed. "Come on — Harry gives you more time than that for lunch, doesn't he? We've sat here for _hours_ before and you never seemed in a hurry then."

"I have _work_ to do, Ron," Ginny pointed out. "I can't always take however much time I want, just because Harry Potter is my boss. It's not like I'm working in that madhouse you, Fred and George started."

Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes was a novelty business Fred and George started during their fourth year at Hogwarts, originally as a mail order service. By the end of their fifth year they'd worked out an arrangement with Harry Potter, who lent them enough money to rent out a store front in Diagon Alley and begin selling their wares in earnest. They'd become wildly successful, and after his fifth year Ron joined the business as a junior partner.

"Beats working in an office wearing a business suit ten or more hours a day," Ron retorted. "I couldn't work in an environment like that."

"Yeah, where you actually have to get something _done_ every day," Ginny sniped, as a server brought out her salad and set it down in front of her, then hurried back inside before she got caught in the crossfire. The sometimes-heated brother-and-sister arguments of Ginny Thomas and Ron Weasley had become legend at the café, carrying over from their days at Hogwarts.

Ron looked indignant at her remark. "We get stuff done," he huffed. "I've been testing a box Fred came up with that you can use to record songs off the WWN and play again any time you want, just by tapping it with your wand and saying the name of the song."

Ginny gave him an ironic look. "Muggles have had MP3 players for over 20 years, Ron. Most of the Muggleborns who come to work for us have one."

"Whatever," Ron snorted. "Fred and George think they'll fly off the shelves."

"Sure, everyone who wants to hear Celestina Warbeck sing her _Greatest Hits_," Ginny laughed. "Maybe Mum will buy one, if Fred and George don't give her one for her birthday."

Ron was silent for a while, playing with his pot pie. He seemed to have lost his appetite. "So how is the Head-Boy-Who-Lived?" he finally asked.

"Still mad about _that_?" Ginny asked, with a vicious little sneer. "It's been nearly twenty years, Ronald."

"I'm not mad about it," Ron demurred. "It's just a joke, you know? Boy-Who-Lived — Head-Boy-Who-Lived. Get it?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I got it back when Harry was made Head Boy over you in your final year. Not easy competing against him, was it?"

Ron was beginning to turn red. "_I'm not upset about it_," he growled, his tone clearly indicating otherwise. "Can we drop it, please?"

"You brought it up," Ginny pointed out. She leaned forward suddenly. "Oh, I was going to tell you — that writer for that Muggle magazine that's been wanting to interview him for, like, forever, came in again today."

Ron grinned, his anger forgotten. "He's a persistent one, isn't he? What did you do to him _now_?"

"I Obliviated him."

"Merlin's pants, Gin!" Ron exclaimed. "What for? I thought you said he was harmless!"

"Well," Ginny leaned in closer, lowering her voice. "He sort of threatened to write a bad article about Harry in the magazine, if he didn't agree to be interviewed. I had to do something drastic to make him forget that. But then, something really strange happened."

"Stranger than Ginny Weasley Thomas busting a Memory Charm on a Muggle?" Ron looked amused. "You should have stayed with the Holyhead Harpies instead of going to Muggle business school, sis."

"Well wait'll you hear," Ginny replied, her voice still low. "I'm escorting this guy out of Harry's office, after he _broke in_ trying to find him and I Obliviated him, and he's trying to remember why he's there, and suddenly he says, 'I remember what it was: recognition code 927, I am a potato'."

Ron spit out a mouthful of butterbeer; fortunately most of it missed Ginny. "You're kidding," he said, wiping his mouth as Ginny cursed and grabbed a napkin to wipe off her blouse. "Isn't that the phrase Harry used whenever he forgot something or thought he'd been Obliviated?"

"Yeah, exactly," Ginny said, still dabbing at her blouse. "Next time I'll wait until you're finished drinking! Anyway, I think it freaked Harry out, because he came out of his office and started talking to the guy, and they went back into his office to do the interview."

Ron sat back and laughed heartily. "So he finally got that interview out of Harry, did he?" Ron shook his head, still smiling after he finally stopped laughing. "You said it would rain purple dragon piss on London before he'd do that!"

Ginny pointed a finger at him, her bright brown eyes flashing. "That's enough out of you," she snapped. "It was that damned recognition code!"

Ron stopped grinning and took on a calculating look. "D'you think that writer found out about it somehow, and used it to get Harry's attention?"

Ginny nodded. "It had to have been. Harry knew the Muggle was there, he put his head out of the office and asked me for a report. I think he was just going to let the guy sit there all afternoon. But about half-past twelve the writer suddenly jumped up and just burst into Harry's office."

"Where was Harry?" Ron asked. He lowered his voice. "Under that Invisibility Cloak of his?"

"I think so," Ginny nodded. Her voice was equally quiet. "He couldn't have been in his lab, he wouldn't have — oh, hi!"

Ron looked around quickly and involuntarily caught his breath. Standing nearby was Hermione Granger-Potter, smiling at the two of them. "Hi, Hermione," he said, with an involuntary squeak in his voice that made him wince. "Didn't, uh, see you there."

"I was just inside the café," Hermione smiled, with a nod toward the door she come out of. "I thought I heard you laughing, Ron."

Ron smiled, looking a bit sheepish. Never, _ever_, if he lived to be a thousand years old, would he ever let on that he'd had (_had_?) a crush on Hermione Granger in school.

"We've just been talking about Harry," Ginny spoke up. She pushed one of the empty chairs at the table toward Hermione. "Want to join us?" she asked, with a sideways glance toward Ron to gauge his reaction. Never, _ever_, would she let on she knew about Ron's crush on Hermione. Especially not now, with her and Harry being married and all. It just wouldn't do to stir that pot, no matter how much she, Ginny, might want to.

Hermione looked apologetic. "I have to get back to the Ministry," she said. "I thought I would just get out of the office for a while, get some air. We had such a lovely time celebrating Harry's birthday yesterday I wanted to enjoy some real sunshine for a while."

"Sunshine, huh?" Ron smiled. "That's appropriate."

"What -?" Hermione looked at him blankly for a moment, then laughed softly. "Oh yes. I'd forgotten about that." Which neither Ron nor Ginny believed for a moment — Hermione never forgot _anything_.

"I should be getting back. You know how demanding the Minister is," Hermione said.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Yeah, we know," she said, with irony. Ron merely smiled, saying nothing.

"Anyway," Hermione continued. "I'd better be going. I'll tell Harry tonight I saw you today, Ron — he tells me we never see anyone anymore, except Ginny."

"He may be late tonight," Ginny spoke up, as Hermione waved and began to turn away. "He's doing an interview with a magazine journalist right now."

"Really?" Hermione looked surprised. "I thought he was holding out for an interview with one of the online news services, like BBCNet or CNNWorldNet. I wonder what changed his mind?"

"Well…" Ginny gave her a long look. "This journalist used the phrase 'recognition code 927, I am a potato' in Harry's hearing."

Hermione stared at her. "You're joking! Where could a Muggle have heard _that_?"

"I don't know," Ginny shook her head. "But I think Harry wanted to find out."

"Oh, dear," Hermione said, unconsciously sitting down in the chair Ginny had originally offered her. "This has never happened before. Has it?"

"I don't think so," Ginny said.

"I wonder what he's doing right now?" Hermione said, almost to herself, as she turned her head in the direction of Harry's office building, where TBC Enterprises was located. She had an impulse to Apparate directly into his office, and might have done so, except that (1) you couldn't Apparate into or out of Diagon Alley any more — entrance was strictly through the archway in the Leaky Cauldron's back courtyard, or through a Floo connection or Ministry-authorized Portkey; and (2) the entire floor where Harry's office was located had an Anti-Apparition Jinx on it as well as an Anti-Portkey Hex, and no Floo connections — you had to arrive on another floor then take the elevator up.

"He's probably just giving that bloke a quick, meaningless interview," Ginny offered, sensing Hermione's consternation. "He wasn't really ready for an interview anyway, I think."

"True…" Hermione agreed, absently. "I'd advised him against it — he really needs to talk with one of the larger online news services, magazines don't reach enough people these days. But…that recognition code… I just don't know." She didn't want to say it aloud, but Hermione Granger-Potter was afraid that Chaos had just been let loose in their lives once again.

=ooo=

**Author's Notes: The story begins on August 1, 2016, 35 years after Harry's parents were murdered in Godric's Hollow, and 25 years after Harry began studying at Hogwarts. Since the first 77 chapters of Methods of Rationality have not even made it through Year One at Hogwarts, not all of the implied circumstances in this first chapter may pan out as written. The next chapter will be up in three weeks, so this story can alternate with Vampire's Assistant.**


	2. The Interview

**Chapter Two**  
><strong>The Interview<strong>

Updated 11/04/2011

"_I notice that I am confused."_

=ooo=

Lunch was nearly over. James Monroe was still finishing the last bit of filet mignon on his plate. Harry Potter-Evans-Verres had finished his meal and was sitting across the table from the journalist, seemingly lost in thought as he sipped absently at a crystal goblet filled with wine.

Monroe expected Harry was organizing his thoughts, contemplating the questions he would be asked during the interview. Most of the questions were well-known: _What is the Singularity_ and _Is the Singularity near_, stuff like that, all pretty standard questions for an interview. Monroe hoped to challenge Harry with a few hard questions, dealing with information Monroe had collected about TBC Enterprises over the past few months he'd been trying to get this meeting.

Almost the moment Monroe dropped the fork on his empty plate, a server appeared from the second door, removing their dishes and returning with coffee cups. Monroe nodded as the young woman offered to fill his cup; she filled Harry's without asking. The server also left a small tray with sugar packets, substitute, and creamer. Harry helped himself to a couple of sugar packets and the creamer, while Monroe used a substitute and a small splash of creamer. For several moments the only sounds in the room were spoons clinking as they stirred their drinks.

"Anytime you're ready," Harry finally said, glancing at his watch.

Monroe reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a pen. However, he did not take out a notepad; instead, he clicked the pen and placed it between them on the table. Harry gazed at the object with interest.

"A recording device?" he asked, looking up at Monroe.

"Audio only," Monroe nodded. "I didn't think you'd mind — it's for both of our protection. I'll let you have a copy of the recording, I can download it into an MP3 device if you have one that accepts Bluetooth V protocols."

"That's acceptable," Harry agreed. "In fact —" he reached into a pocket and took out a device that looked like a flash drive, but without the mini-USB port. "This is a similar device manufactured by one of our subsidiary companies. It has 128 gigabytes of recording memory and can produce most of the major audio formats, uploadable through BT5 to any device that can play back any of the formats."

Monroe looked fascinatedly at the device. "Impressive! My Record-A-Pen only has 64 gigs, and only uploads MP3's. I guess I'm not on the cutting edge of technology these days."

"Apparently not," Harry agreed, in a neutral tone. He tapped his recording device and a small red LED began blinking. "Ready when you are, Gridley."

Monroe smiled at the odd reference. Harry was apparently well-read. "Let's start with the most obvious question: What does the Singularity mean to you?"

"The end of my job, obviously," Harry grinned. "But that's probably not the response your audience would expect. I'd say it's a time in future history of radical change, when progress occurs faster than normal humans can understand, or keep up with."

_A boilerplate response_, thought Monroe. "Any ideas what type of progress you think will most likely produce this radical change?" he asked.

"Oh…" Harry looked thoughtful for several seconds, sipping his coffee. "I'm not sure. It's kind of a toss-up which way the tech research companies decide are the coolest, or maybe the least nerdy."

_Nicely evaded_. "Which way do _you_ think is least nerdy?" Monroe pressed.

Harry cocked his head. "I think brain-computer interfaces will be the most interesting. We have a subsidiary working on that."

"Which one?" Monroe asked.

Harry only smiled and took another sip.

_Okay_, Monroe thought. _Let's move on, then_. "Do you think the Singularity is near?"

"It depends on what you mean by 'near,'" Harry answered, and Monroe suppressed a sigh of exasperation. _It's like pulling teeth to get this guy to talk_.

"Whatever you consider near," Monroe suggested.

Harry steepled his fingers on the table once again. "I like Kurzweil's prediction of 2045," he said. "It's out far enough to give the AI people a chance to develop human-level intelligence without being overly optimistic about it."

"What do you consider 'overly optimistic'?" Monroe continued.

"Oh, 2020, 2030, estimates like that." Harry waved a hand dismissing them.

"Why consider them optimistic?"

"There's still a lot to be done," Harry answered. "Even I have fallen prey to the planning fallacy in the past. In 1956 scientists at the Dartmouth Conference on Artificial Intelligence suggested, in all seriousness, that key elements of artificial intelligence could be solved by ten scientists working on them for about two months. Here we are, 60 years later, and they are just barely starting to understand what must still be done."

"You're starting to come off as something of a skeptic," Monroe remarked, taking a drink from his own cup, the first one he'd had since it had been filled.

"Not at all," Harry disagreed. "I think they simply failed to grasp the scope of the problem. Self-improving AI is just a stepping-stone to the Singularity itself."

"What is TBC doing to work toward the Singularity?" was Monroe's next question.

"We're primarily going down the 'N' path of the GNR paradigm," Harry responded. "Currently our primary product development is in MEMS, and we've been doing cutting-edge research in grapheme IC's, diamond manufacturing for quantum computer systems, and self-repairing and assembling nanosystems."

"How far are we away from molecular nanotechnology, the so-called 'Holy Grail' of nanotech?"

"Less than a decade, I would estimate," Harry said. "It will probably be developed before human-level AI becomes available."

"Some scientists consider MNT to be problematic without better-than-human level intelligence to control it," Monroe pointed out. "What do you think of that?"

Harry shrugged. "It's the same problem the 'Friendly-AI' people have with uncontrolled development of smarter-than-human machine intelligence.

"So, how long until we have human-level Artificial Intelligence?" Monroe pressed.

"Well, Kurzweil's prediction for a machine to pass the Turing test is by 2029," Harry answered. "I'd agree with that, for the most part."

"For the most part?" Monroe echoed. "Are any of your 'subsidiaries' working on AI now?"

Harry smiled thinly at the obvious quotes Monroe put around the word "subsidiary." "We have some research going on," he admitted. "I'm not really at liberty to discuss specifics."

Monroe was silent for several seconds. Potter was talking a lot but not really saying much positive about the Singularity. He took a few sips of his coffee, then asked, "Do you think the Singularity should be a cause for alarm or concern for people?"

Harry chuckled briefly. "I don't think most people are even going to know the Singularity occurred, much less be alarmed over it."

Monroe frowned. _That was interesting_. _And alarming in itself, in a way_. "I would think _everyone_ would know about the Singularity, when it occurred."

"Yes, you might think that," Harry agreed, dryly. "But didn't we already agree earlier that the Singularity would be beyond most people's ability to comprehend? When you're confronted with an unknown, your only two real options are to try to comprehend it, or ignore it and hope it goes away. I think most people will do the latter."

Monroe shook his head. "I don't think I agreed to that at all."

"Then why didn't you call me on it when I said it, earlier?" Harry asked.

"Because I'm conducting an interview," Monroe pointed out, with a hint of acerbity in his voice. "I don't want to introduce bias into the conversation."

"Oh, so you admit you're biased when it comes to the Singularity, then."

Monroe's mouth clamped shut on the obscenity he almost uttered. _Manipulative sonofabitch, isn't he_? "I just don't want to interject my personal views into what you're saying," he answered, tightly.

"Why not?" Harry wondered, eyebrows raised in a falsely-innocent expression. "Won't you do that back at your offices when you're writing the story? I just don't expect most people to realize that the Singularity has occurred. In fact, how do we know it _hasn't_ occurred yet?"

"That seems pretty obvious —" Monroe stopped, considering.

"I think you're seeing my point," Harry observed, and drained the last of his cup. He set the cup down and leaned forward over the table, toward Monroe. "In principle, we would not be able to tell the difference between reality and a perfect emulation of reality."

"Like that movie, _The Matrix_," Monroe suggested.

"I was thinking a bit more current," Harry said. "_The Matrix_ is 17 years old, and the emulation _wasn't_ perfect. People who learned they were in the Matrix found ways to bend the rules of the emulation, or break them. I was thinking more of the movie _The Rainbow Reality_."

_The Rainbow Reality_ was a film that had come out last year. In it, the main protagonist, Bill, learned that the reality he was in was virtual when someone from the next lower level somehow passed that information to him. He had been in the Red Level, the highest level of implementation, and he embarked on a quest to find the lowest level, designated the Violet Level. Each level had had its own rules and its own exceptions to the rules — in the level Bill was in, he was a retired assassin who trained other assassins (mostly women) and sent them on assignments. His doppelganger in the Orange Level, suspecting that one of his assassins would return and kill him, had sent Bill a clue that allowed him to figure out a way to download himself to the Orange Level. The rest of the movie was a weird combination of angst and action as Bill found versions of himself — or those who had killed him — on every level.

"Those emulations weren't perfect, either," Monroe pointed out. "People could move from one level to another."

"If someone at a lower level told them a lower level existed," Harry argued. "But there was no internal rule-breaking at any of the levels, just the laws of physics as they were implemented for that level."

"Which always included a way to move to higher or lower levels," Monroe added.

"Don't you think we'll be able to do that after the Singularity?" Harry asked, curious. "Move to higher or lower levels of reality if we want to?"

"What level of reality do you think we're at now?" Monroe answered the question with one of his own. He was beginning to get tired of Harry Potter-Evans-Verres driving the interview in whatever direction he wanted.

"I'll answer," Harry said, after a moment. "If you promise to do the same."

Monroe sighed. "Very well," he said stiffly, silently resolving this was the last manipulation he would put up with. "I agree."

"My answer," Harry said at once. "Is that I think we always act as if we are at the lowest level of implementation, because, well, what other choice do we have?

"Your turn," Harry nodded to the journalist.

Monroe was silent for several moments. "My answer," he said at last. "Is the same as yours."

Harry actually giggled. "_Now_ who's being manipulative?" he asked.

"That's _not_ being manipulative!" Monroe said, sharply. "Aren't other people allowed to think the same way you do?"

"See?" Harry pointed toward him. "_That's_ manipulation."

Monroe sat back suddenly in his chair. "This conversation is becoming surreal," he muttered, rubbing his forehead in frustration.

"Then my work here is nearly done," Harry grinned. "I like introducing as much surreality in people's lives as possible. And we haven't even gotten to the extraction of that mnemonic from your unconscious."

Monroe shook his head. "No, I don't think we're doing that any more."

"Oh, come on," Harry wheedled. "You're going to find it very interesting, I think."

"It's easy enough to say that," Monroe retorted. "But the reality is, your opinion of what I find interesting may not be that reliable. For example, this interview would have been _much_ more interesting if you'd just answered the questions straightforwardly and not bobbed and weaved around everything I asked you, even if it hadn't been for all the work you put me through just to get to this point."

"I wanted to see how interested you were in this interview," Harry said, then shrugged. "Well, that was a lie. I really didn't want to do this interview in the first place, not for some paper magazine with a limited readership, even if you do upload your articles to the web these days. It just wasn't worth my time."

"So why _did_ you do the interview?" Monroe asked, in a controlled tone. If for no other reason, Potter admitting that on the record would be _very_ interesting reading — worth all the trouble it had taken him to get here.

"It was that recognition code," Harry answered. "It's the exact same phrase I used when I was a kid, to help me remember that I'd forgotten something. I'm really, _really_ curious how you happened to come across it."

"I _told_ you," Monroe was shaking his head. "I have no idea how I know —"

Harry interrupted him. "Would you like to know a really big secret?"

=ooo=

Very few witches or wizards, within the Ministry or without, knew the password that would admit them to the office of the Minister of Magic. The door to that office, securely locked and magically protected, suddenly burst open, admitting the Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department, rage written across his sharp, pointed features. He stopped in front of the Minister's desk, barely controlling himself.

"What the hell does Harry think he's doing _now_?"

The Minister looked up at him. "Just as you and I think, most likely — he's having an interview with a Muggle journalist about something called the Singularity."

"Have you been watching what he's _doing_?" The Head Auror demanded.

"I have other things to do than watch Harry give an interview," the Minister said, mildly. "Besides, that's _your_ job, Draco. You wanted those viewing devices planted in his office and private dining room."

"You told him about them!" Draco said, accusingly.

"I did not," the Minister shook her head. "You put the security level of those viewing devices above Harry's need to know, and I agreed with it, even though it would seem we don't trust him as much as say we do to his face. I have a problem with that, but Harry is privy to a lot of sensitive information — we do have to make sure it is kept out of the wrong hands."

"Watch this, then," Draco pointed his wand at the white display square on the Minister's desk, and the image of Harry and Muggle journalist appeared on it.

"_It was that recognition code_," Harry's image was saying. "_It's the exact same phrase I used when I was a kid, to help me remember that I'd forgotten something. I'm really, really curious how you happened to come across it_."

"_I _told_ you_," the Muggle was shaking his head. "_I have no idea how I know_ —"

Harry interrupted him. "_Would you like to know a really big secret_?"

And the image went blank.

Draco glared at the Minister. "What kind of 'really big secret' would Harry tell to a _Muggle_?"

The Minister was frowning at the blank screen. "I don't know," she said. "Surely not —"

"I'd like to believe that, too," Draco nodded. "After all this time, the existence of the Wizarding world is known to very few Muggles; most of them have witches and wizards as relatives. But —" he pointed to the blank display "— the feed cut off at that moment — we have _no idea_ what Harry is telling him right now!"

The Minister sat back, a worried frown creasing her brow for the first time since Malfoy had entered her office. "I cannot believe Harry would willfully disregard the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy just to find out what some Muggle knows about a memory code phrase he used as a kid. Was there anything this Muggle said that would indicate he already knows about magic?"

"Nothing," Draco shook his head sharply. "He seems completely clueless. In fact, the Thomas woman had Obliviated him after he stormed into Harry's office demanding to be heard. She was about to have him escorted out when he suddenly said, 'Recognition code 927, I am a potato,' which Harry overheard and invited him into his office for the interview. The Thomas woman —"

"You can call her Ginny," the Minister interrupted, mildly. "You've known her long enough, after all."

"The _Thomas woman_," Draco continued as if he hadn't heard, "went to lunch right after that, to have lunch with her brother Ron —"

"I know that," the Minister interrupted in turn. "I saw them in Diagon Alley when I stepped out for a quick bite. How is that relevant?"

"She is _supposed_ to be keeping an eye on him for us," Draco gritted icily.

"Is she _supposed_ to go hungry while she does that?" Hermione asked, just as coldly.

Draco simmered in impotent rage. "She might've had lunch brought up to her," he said. "But fine — you don't share my opinion on the obligations of those working for us."

"I don't share your distrust of Harry," Hermione smiled at him, making Draco even more angry, though he would never show such anger towards the Minister of Magic over her husband. Such would not be prudent, especially in his line of work, as dangerous as it was. Hermione Granger-Potter might be Minister of Magic, but she was _still_ a mudblood, no matter _what_ Harry Potter had proven to him about blood purity and magic. It was beyond that, anyway — who knew where her loyalties lay these days. She might even be in on this plot to let the Muggles know about the Wizarding World.

Sometimes, Draco wished he had never met Harry Potter, or let him teach Draco the ways of rationality, no matter what it had helped Draco accomplish over the past two decades.

Into his silence, Hermione leaned forward over her desk, her eyes staring into his. "Now, was there a _point_ to you bursting into my office, Draco, or must I guess what you want me to do about this?"

"I'm going to contact Harry's director of operations and see what he suspects about what's going on," Draco answered.

"You don't need me for that," Hermione pointed out. "So you're saying that you burst in here just because you had no idea what Harry was doing, and you wanted me to give you some insight into his thinking, because we're married?"

"No," Draco said. _Even though that was the reason he was here_. "I wanted you to be aware that your husband may be very close to breaking international Wizarding law."

"Then you should go and make sure the Auror Department can prove that to the Wizengamot," Hermione suggested, dryly. She then looked away from Draco, back at what she'd been doing before he entered her office. "And close the door on your way out, please."

After a moment Draco nodded, stiffly, then strode silently to the door, pulling it shut after him. Hermione took out her wand, pointed it at the door, and said, "_Colloportus_," followed by several additional spells that she only used when she needed a _very_ private conversation with her husband. Whatever Harry was up to, she needed to let him know that the Aurors were looking very closely at him (and probably at her as well — there were some downsides to having someone like Draco Malfoy running the Auror Department.

=ooo=

"A secret?" Monroe looked interested despite himself. "As a journalist, you should know that my primary objective is to _expose_ secrets, not engage in keeping them."

Harry smiled evilly. "I'm sure you go around exposing your own secrets all the time, then, Mr. Monroe."

"That's different," Monroe retorted. "Of course everyone has secrets they would rather not have anyone know."

"Would you like to trade, one of mine for one of yours?" Harry asked, then waved off the look of indignation on Monroe's face. "I'm just kidding. But not about my secret. I do want to know where you heard that recognition code, but I have to show you a few things first before we get to that. I want you to understand that you'll be perfectly safe while we figure that out." Harry stood and walked to the wall of the private dining area furthest from the door they entered, then gestured for Monroe to join him as he took something from one of his pockets. Curious, Monroe picked up his recording pen from the table then stepped closer, watching as Harry waved the object, a long piece of thin wood, at the wall. A moment later Monroe caught his breath in stunned surprise.

A rectangular section of the wall sank inward, then slid to one side, revealing a much larger area beyond. "My private work area," Harry said, putting away the stick of wood into a pocket that looked too small to hold it. For that matter, Monroe remembered, he was sure Harry's office had been on a corner of the building they were in — _where_ was the room for this workspace coming from?

The room must've been the size of a football field (perhaps he should say, soccer field, since the room was nearly as wide as it was long) over a hundred yards long and 80 to 90 yards wide. It looked to be perhaps 15 to 20 yards to the ceiling, from which long arrays of lights had turned on as the door opened, illuminating the entire area. There were dozens of workbenches scattered throughout the room, some with easily recognizable devices on them such as oscilloscopes, digital signal generators, and Fourier analyzers. Other benches had much weirder items on them — silver or gold mechanisms that spun or reciprocated, disgorging bursts of smoke or steam in odd patterns. Monroe could hear a dizzying cacophony of beeps, burps, toots, and even glorps, goops and splurts coming from nearly every bench near them.

He turned to Harry in utter confusion. "What the hell do you do in here?"

Harry was grinning a conspiratorial grin. "That's part of the big secret I've got for you, to show you what goes on in here." But when Monroe started into the room, Harry put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. "That is, if we have an agreement that you'll let me figure out where you heard that recognition code. Deal or no deal?"

Monroe, now intensely curious what was going on in Harry's vast workroom, nevertheless gave him an apprehensive look. "What if some goon squad stops me on my way out of here afterwards, and takes my Record-A-Pen away from me? Then you've got my proof that any of this happened." He patted the Pen, now in his jacket pocket.

"You have my word that no one will take your pen away from you," Harry promised. He even put one hand in the air, as if he were formally swearing to that fact.

Monroe nodded, seemingly convinced. Even if Potter was lying, he knew, he had an ace up his sleeve — literally, as a backup recording device was sown into the lining of his jacket, much more sophisticated electronics device capable of picking up sounds up to a hundred yards away, using his entire jacket as a omnidirectional microphone. It was shielded as well, as an RFID device, so even if Potter's bug detectors picked it up they would think it was harmless.

"Okay, then," he answered. "It's a deal." He extended his hand, and Harry shook it. _Now let's see whether he'll keep this deal_, Monroe thought to himself.

"Come on in," Harry gestured for Monroe to follow as he stepped into the workroom. "Let's see," he pondered, looking around slowly. "How can I explain what I'm doing in here? Hmm. Ah!" He pointed to a nearby workbench. "There's just the thing, something I came up with a few years ago for the Ministry, though they decided not to use it."

Monroe followed Harry to a nearby workbench, where Harry picked up a cylindrical object from the bench and handed it to Monroe. "What do you think that is?" he asked.

Monroe examined the item carefully. It was a metal cylinder about a foot long, surprisingly lightweight for its size, with rounded ridges along the length of the cylinder, presumably for a better grip. There were a couple of switches near the top, one a toggle and the other a short slider. There was also a small readout near the top. Remaining Battery life? Monroe flipped the cylinder around so he could look at the top. He expected to find a lens and bulb, but there was only a translucent white covering there, slightly concave. To direct the beam better? "Is it a flashlight —?" Monroe began, his finger reaching for the toggle.

Harry reached out and blocked his thumb from flipping the toggle, pulling the object out of his hand. "Wrong guess," he said. "And you _don't_ want this pointing at your head when you turn it on, by the way." He pointed the cylinder away from both of them, into empty air, and flipped the switch.

A beam of golden light extended from the end of the cylinder, reaching twice the length of the cylinder before abruptly stopping. Monroe stared at it, mouth agape, as Harry waved it momentarily. A humming sound came from the blade, its pitch rising and falling as Harry he moved it. "What does this remind you of?" Harry asked, expectantly.

"It's — it's a light saber," Monroe muttered, almost in shock. "But — you can't _do_ that with lasers! They're a beam of light, not a solid object with a specific length! _How can you be doing that_?"

"Magic," Harry said, happily. He switched the toggle again and the beam disappeared. "You're right — science could never do something like that. But magic has no such restrictions."

"Magic…" Monroe looked utterly baffled by what Harry had just said. "You mean _magic_ magic, not Keith Barry or David Blaine magic, right?" His vision was beginning to gray out — this was utterly beyond anything that had ever happened to him before. He looked around for a chair to sit on, and one was suddenly at his side. He plopped down in it, holding his head, which was still whirling with the idea of a magical light saber. He looked up at last, mustering his calm and rationality once again. "I'm still not sure about this," he said. "Because it's possible you could be fooling me about that light saber somehow, you know."

"Well, let's try something else, then," Harry said, taking out the wooden stick he'd put in his pocket a minute ago. He waved it at Monroe. "_Wingardium Leviosa_!" Monroe rose out of the chair about a foot in the air, still in sitting position.

"Holy crap!" Monroe shouted. "Am I floating?"

"Did I have a chance to attach any wires to you?" Harry asked. "I don't think —" There was a short buzzing sound, like a cell phone. "Just a second," he said. "I have to take this." He reached into a pocket and took out a small rectangular object, putting it to his ear. At the same time his wand made a quick series of movements while still pointed at the journalist. Monroe, meanwhile, was looking around himself in near panic, trying to figure out what was holding him up. He looked down at Harry and said, "—-" but nothing came out.

"Oh, hello, love," Harry said, smiling as he spoke into the phone. "Yes, I'm still doing the interview… No, not at all, nothing like that! He is? Well, he's always suspicious of me — probably just jealous I'm a captain of industry and he's a government employee… Yes, dear, I know you're one too, I was just… Yes, you're right, I'm sorry… Okay, love, see you this evening. Bye. Love you too, bye."

Harry put away the phone as Monroe was lowered to the floor. He put his hand to his throat. "Testing, one, two, three," he said, then glowered at Harry. "I tried to say something while you were on the phone but I couldn't! What did you do to me? More magic?"

"I couldn't have you spilling the beans while I was talking with my wife," Harry answered, as he slid the wooden stick he was holding back into a pocket that was still clearly too small to hold it. "She thinks we're just having a regular interview."

Monroe made a quick deduction. "You're not supposed to be telling me any of this, are you? That's why nobody ever heard of this — this magic or people who could…perform it…" That was a pretty big implication, if true. How many people _were_ there out there, who could do this kind of stuff?

Harry made a gesture of indifference. "There are some among us who think that people knowing that real magic exists will bring about chaos and distrust among magical and non-magical people, and eventually destroy us all. I happen to think people are smarter than that, though."

"But telling _me_?" Monroe looked skeptical. "I'm just a writer for some Singularity magazine, not even one of the major players in the field. Why would you pick me to deliver this news to the world? I notice that I am confused."

Harry jerked, startled. "_What_ did you just say?"

"I notice that I am confused," Monroe repeated. "People are more often confused by fiction than they are by facts —"

"You're doing it again!" Harry almost shouted. "I'd almost think we read the same authors, except that I've never heard that recognition code mnemonic anywhere except when I said it! I really have to know how you heard that."

"I guess we ought to discuss that, then," Monroe suggested. "Just how are you going to 'magic' that memory out of my head?"

"It's pretty simple," Harry said. "I have a device that we can use to view your memories of —" Harry stopped as a buzzer abruptly sounded. "_Now_ what?" he muttered, through clenched teeth. "It seems like _nobody_ trusts me these days!"

"What is it," Monroe asked, then stepped back involuntarily as Harry pulled out his wooden stick again, pointing it at him.

"Sorry," Harry said. "I have to hide you. Unavoidable — I'll be back in a minute or so."

Even as Monroe shook his head to stop Harry from magicking him again, his body suddenly stiffened, his arms snapping down to his sides. He began to tip over, and though Monroe tried to cry out in alarm no sound came from his mouth.

Before he hit the floor, however, his body suddenly stopped, then continued rotating until he was floating in the air again, this time face up. The buzzer sounded again, this time somehow more insistently. Harry floated Monroe onto an empty bench top, and everything suddenly went silent. A moment later Harry had covered Monroe with a silvery, semi-transparent material, then walked away.

_How was this hiding him_? Monroe wondered. Wouldn't a man-sized object covered with a silver sheet be pretty noticeable?

Harry walked over to the workroom's exit, waving his wand at the door, which slid open. On the other side was his Operations Director, Dean Thomas. "Harry," he nodded at him, casually. "How're things going today?"

"Never better! Harry replied, brightly. "What can I do for you, Dean?"

"Head Auror Malfoy just sent me a note, sir," Dean told him. "He said they noticed at the Ministry that that journalist, James Monroe, who entered the building before lunch this morning still hasn't left."

"He hasn't," Harry agreed. "We're still conducting the interview."

"Where is he?" Dean asked, leaning forward slightly to glance around the room. Harry made no move to prevent him. "He's not in _here_, is he, Harry?"

"Why would he be in here, Dean?" Harry asked, innocence written all over his face. "He's just a Muggle — he has no reason to know about magic."

"Well —" Dean hesitated a moment. "There was something about a recognition code…"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Have you been talking to Ginny during lunch?"

"Uh, no…" Dean began. Was _Ginny_ in on what Malfoy suspected Harry was doing? He certainly hoped not! Malfoy was a good Head Auror, but he did have a tendency toward vindictiveness, especially against former Gryffindors. Not to mention Harry as well. "I haven't seen her since we got to the office this morning…"

"That's what I thought," Harry nodded, in a musing tone. "Well, tell Malfoy that he's still here with me, and we'll be finishing up the interview in an hour or so. Tell him I'm finding it quite fascination, much more interesting than I expected it would be. That should really twist his tail."

Dean grinned. "I expect it will, sir. Thank you." The door slid shut. Harry shook his head once, then went back to the work bench where Monroe lay paralyzed by the _Petrificus Totalus_ curse. He pulled the silvery covering off the journalist, then pointed his wand at Monroe's motionless form and said, "_Finite Incatatem_."

After a moment Monroe, realizing he could move again, sat up on the bench and glared angrily at Harry. "What was _that_ about?" he shouted. "I couldn't move or hear a thing!"

"For you own protection," Harry said. "Or rather, mine, since you're not supposed to be in here. If my Operations Director saw you in here he'd be duty-bound to report me to the Ministry or face charges himself of conspiracy, and there's no point to letting anyone except me get in trouble for this."

"You might have mentioned that before you brought me in here!" Monroe said, loudly.

"On the other hand, you should be convinced by now that magic is real, am I right about that?" Harry pointed out.

"Well…yeah, I suppose," Monroe admitted.

"Good," Harry said, turning and gesturing for Monroe to follow him. He led the Muggle to a far corner of the workroom, where a tall, black cabinet stood against a wall with a square table a few yards from it. Opening the cabinet with a wave of his wand, Harry took out a shallow stone bowl, with odd-looking symbols carved around its lip, and placed it on the table between him and Monroe. Inside the bowl Monroe could see a swirling silvery essence, like light made liquid. He looked up at Harry.

"What — what is this thing?"

"This, Mr. Monroe," Harry said with a smile. "Is a Pensieve."


	3. The Interview, Part 2

**Chapter Three**  
><strong>The Interview, Part 2<strong>

Updated 11/18/2011

"_I've wanted an opportunity to speak like that once more for _years_ now_._"_

"A pensive?" Monroe repeated, frowning. "A pensive _what_?"

"No, it's P-E-N-S-I-E-V-E," Harry spelled out the word.

"Oh." Monroe finally got it. "It's a pun. Well, I'm not that excited about something you're going to use on me that has the word 'sieve' in it."

Harry was running his hand slowly around the rim of the gray stone bowl. "This was given to me by a good friend, who used it for many years. He stored extra memories in it when he felt his mind was getting a little too cluttered. I've viewed some of them over the years as well. You can use the bowl to view your own memories again at any time, and they get reintegrated back into your mind when you do."

Monroe, who still knew very little about magic, nevertheless immediately perceived a flaw in that design. "What happens if you view someone else's memories? Do they go into _that_ person's mind?"

"No," Harry replied. "You can view other people's memories in perfect detail, and remember them after you've seen them, but each person's memories are unique, and only flow back into the brain they came out of."

Monroe was looking at the bowl apprehensively. "I'm beginning to think this is a bad idea," he muttered. Could this thing suck out all of his memories, leaving him a drooling idiot? Is that what Potter wanted, to suck out his memories of this interview, and steal his recorder, leaving him with nothing to report? Monroe still had his ace in the hole, the secondary recording device hidden within his clothing, as well as his Record-A-Pen in his jacket pocket, but if Potter somehow yanked out the memory that he'd ever _gone_ on this interview, he might not remember to check his backup.

"You did promise," Harry pointed out. "You shook on it."

"Yeah," Monroe retorted. "Without knowing what I was getting into! And then you turned my freaking world upside down!"

"That's what makes a good article," Harry persisted.

"Assuming I don't get locked up in the loony bin for telling it," Monroe came back. "Assuming you even let me out of here without turning me into a zombie. Assuming I wake up tomorrow and don't think this was all just a dream."

"You're so cynical," Harry muttered, reprovingly. "What have you got to lose?"

_A lot_, Monroe though. Even if he kept his memories of this conversation, even if his Record-A-Pen still had the interview recorded on it, what was to keep his editors at _Singularity Today_ from thinking he was trying to perpetrate a massive hoax on them? What was to keep Potter-Evans-Verres from saying it was all tongue-in-cheek and that he, Monroe, had misunderstood? But —

"More than you seem to think," was all Monroe said. "Will you give me your word that, if you're questioned about this 'magic' you're been showing me, you won't deny everything or say it was just a hoax?"

"Absolutely," Harry nodded. "You have my word as a rationalist."

_Great_, thought Monroe. _That's a real comfort — a rationalist magic-user_. "Do you also give your word that you're going to let me out of here without sucking all my memories of this interview out of my head?"

"I promise, unless you ask me to," Harry agreed once again, with a qualification. "Satisfied?"

_Unless I _ask_ him to_? Monroe thought. _Why in the world would I do _that? _Maybe this rationalist thing of his makes him answer in a hyper-literal viewpoint_.

"Not altogether," the journalist admitted. "But…okay. What do we do next?"

Harry took on a detached look, as if he were reciting a well-learned routine. "You should spend a minute or so thinking about the situation — in your case, the phrase 'Recognition code 927 — I am a potato.' When you're sufficiently composed, I will cast a short spell to extract the memories associated with that phrase, and will place them in the Pensieve. After that, you and I will enter the memories and view them."

"Alright," Monroe nodded, then began concentrating on the phrase in question, although there were no memories he could recall explicitly about it. Would that be enough to satisfy Potter, that there was nothing for him to see? It would have to be. "What now?" he asked, a minute or so later.

Harry took out his wand once again. He slowly moved the tip toward Monroe's temple, who watched nervously at its approach. When it finally touched, Harry said, "_Pensextraxi_!" and drew it slowly away from the journalist, who watched the wand moving away until he saw the tip, whereupon he jerked violently.

A silver strand of — of _something_ was attached to the tip of Harry's wand. "What the hell?" he shouted, but Harry put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from pulling away entirely.

"Don't move…" Harry muttered, continuing to draw his wand away from Monroe's head. "I'm extracting your thoughts." Monroe felt a brief tug, and the silver strand floated free at the tip of Harry's wand. Harry moved his wand over the Pensieve and wiggled it briefly; the strand of silvery stuff wafted downward, landing in the liquid-like substance in the bowl and seemed to dissipate. "Okay," Harry announced. "We're ready to go."

He pointed to the Pensieve. "Do what I do," he told Monroe. "We're going to lean over and slowly put our faces into the bowl. Don't worry," he added, at Monroe's expression. "It's not liquid, so you won't drown. Be prepared for a falling sensation, however."

"Falling?" Monroe looked startled. "What's going to happen to us?"

"Nothing," Harry assured him. "When we enter the memories we'll be floating down into them. You and anyone else associated with these memories will be there, but we won't be able to interact with them. We'll only see and hear what you saw and heard — the Pensieve does not read your inner thoughts. Are you ready?"

"No," Monroe said, resigned. "But let's get it over with."

Both men faced each other over the stone basin, then slowly lowered their faces toward the silvery liquid, Monroe watching Harry's actions carefully. As his nose touched the stuff, Monroe felt himself suddenly jerked forward into a cold blackness that seemed to spin him around and around violently, yet the sensation was merely unsettling, not painful.

Suddenly the blackness resolved into a place unfamiliar to the journalist, as he landed without the sensation of hitting the ground in a vast, brightly-lit room. He looked around. Harry was standing next to him, his expression inscrutable.

"Where are we?" Monroe asked him.

"You don't know?" Harry asked in reply, his tone unreadable. "Look around, see if you recognize anything. Or anyone."

Monroe glanced around him. The room he was in was very large and very open, longer than it was wide, but not by much, and four magnificent wooden tables ran down its length, two on each side of where they were standing. There were children seated at each of the tables, all of them eating or talking or reading; they must be at some kind of boarding school, Monroe decided, and was about to turn and ask if this was the school Harry attended when a glance upward made him stop and gape in awe.

Above them were _thousands_ of candles, not suspended from chandeliers, but floating in midair! And beyond the candles… the morning sky itself was visible, a vast canopy stretching over the entire room.

"Kind of amazing, isn't it?" Harry's voice said in his ear, and Monroe nodded mutely. He had never seen anything like this. It _must_ be the school Potter attended in Scotland! A _magic_ school! But why would his thoughts bring them _here_? Had they gotten into one of Harry's memories by mistake?

Just then a boy ran past them, a boy with unruly black hair that reminded Monroe of Potter's untamed hair, and practically leapt into a seat at the table nearest them, wedging apart two boys; one of them glared at his rudeness, but the other boy just kept on eating — his plate was filled with eggs, sausage and fried potatoes, Monroe saw — similar to his own favorite breakfast as a youth.

The black-haired boy had grabbed something off his belt and was reaching into it. It was a small, leathery pouch, Monroe saw, and he pulled a small piece of paper out of it and consulted it briefly, then grabbed an entire pie that was sitting nearby and _stuffed it into the pouch_. As Monroe watched, fascinated, the mouth of the pouch expanded so the pie could fit inside, then shrunk back to its original diameter with a small _burp_.

"Hey!" a girl with curly brown hair looked at the black-haired boy indignantly. "That's everyone's dessert! You can't just take one whole pie and put it in your pouch!"

But even as she was saying this, the boy had grabbed another pie and fed it into his pouch. "I'm not taking one pie, I'm taking two," he informed her. He spun around and stood. "Sorry everyone, gotta run now!" Several other people shouted at him, outraged at his actions, but he ignored them, trotted down to the end of the tables and exited the large set of double doors that led out of the room.

Monroe glanced back at the empty spot where the boy had momentarily seated himself. The piece of paper he'd pulled from his pouch was still on the table, and the boy who had continued eating his breakfast idly picked it up and was looking at it. Monroe leaned over the boy's shoulder to read what was written on it.

On the note was a handwritten message, along with several annotations made to one side. The annotations were some type of list.

_ Two candy bars (small).  
><em>_First note (-1 attempt)  
><em>_Empty box of snack bars  
><em>_Second note (1 point spent)  
><em>_Six snack bars.  
><em>_Third note (-20 points, bad guess! And -2 pajama points)  
><em>_Fourth note (1 point spent) plus underwear comment  
><em>_Cherry pie (first throw)  
><em>_Blueberry pie (second throw, with warning note)  
><em>_Fifth note (+10 style, -1 million for good thinking) 2 turns left  
><em>_Sixth note (appeal failed, -1 billion for asking the wrong questions)  
><em>_Final note, failure and minus infinity points._

The note itself was shorter.

_ Dear Me,  
><em>_Please play the game. You can only play the game once in a lifetime.  
><em>_This is an irreplaceable opportunity.  
><em>_Recognition code 927, I am a potato._

_ Yours,  
><em>_You._

"Oh." Monroe said. He didn't understand the note, but there was the mnemonic code Harry had questioned him about, clearly written there. He stood up and looked at Harry, who had been looking over the boy's other shoulder.

"Welp," the Harry standing beside him said, in a monotone. "Now we know." Though that fact clearly did not seem to satisfy him.

"I don't get it," Monroe said, bewildered. "Who _is_ this kid? What's he doing in this place?"

"That's what I'd like to know, too," Harry said, evenly. "We're seeing these things from his perspective, and these are _your_ extracted thoughts. Therefore it follows that this boy is you."

=ooo=

"Don't give me that!" Malfoy snapped, glaring at Dean Thomas's image on his white screen — _another_ one of Potter's improvements to wizard communications over the past few decades, though not one of his original ideas. "Potter never intended to give that Muggle an interview in the first place — now you're trying to say he's taking extra time?"

"You know how his mind works," Dean shrugged.

_No_, Malfoy thought. _I _don't_ know how his mind works, not anymore_, but instead he said, "Just let us know when he finally leaves the building, Mr. Thomas."

"I'm sure you'll know the moment he does, Head Auror," Dean replied, acidly. The connection terminated.

Draco Malfoy sat back in his chair. Of course they would know — they had Harry's building closely monitored, inside and out. The only place they weren't authorized to surveil was the Potter private residence on the top three floors of the building, occupied by Potter and his wife, Hermione Granger-Potter.

When the Muggle finally emerged from the building, Aurors would close in and quickly transport him to headquarters, where he could be adequately debriefed and properly Obliviated, if necessary. If any of Potter's schemes of informing the Muggles of the Wizarding world were somehow bound up in this Muggle's head, they would be removed and false memories would be implanted in their place—memories that were not very complimentary of Harry Potter's Muggle business ventures, if Draco had his way. Potter was becoming much too powerful in the Muggle world; someone had to apply some leverage there. For the Wizarding world it was already too late, Draco knew.

Harry's power and prestige in the Wizarding world was already a foregone conclusion. By the time he had left Hogwarts he had already owned most of Diagon Alley's businesses, either directly or through what he'd called "investments" with the business owners themselves. Even shops in Knockturn Alley had not been safe from his reach — the owners there were known to be even more interested in money than many of the other businesses in Diagon Alley, and Harry had preyed upon that greed to his advantage.

Potter also had more influence over the goblins of Gringotts than even Draco's father wielded these days, and that took _real_ wealth, not the paltry fortune Potter's birth parents would have left him, a sum known to Lord Malfoy at the time, though he had not told Draco until years later. Draco did not know how Harry had come into such money except that it likely had to do with Harry's being a "scientist," as he'd liked to call himself while at Hogwarts. While Draco had learned the techniques of science from Harry, and had adopted a few of its principles, his most important lessons had always come from his father.

And so, adhering to those techniques, and to the traditions the Malfoys had followed for centuries, he was now the second most powerful person in Wizarding Britain — the Head Auror for the Ministry of Magic, answerable only to the Minister herself. Who, a small voice in Draco's head reminded him, was married to Harry Potter, the _real_ most powerful person in Wizarding Britain. Did that leave him at Number Three? Draco was inclined to think "no" — his influence in the Ministry, along with his father's influence in the Wizengamot, could change the very laws themselves, if need be. Someday, Draco knew as well, his father would pass on, making him Lord Malfoy, and this stepping-stone job as Head Auror would be put behind him, for _real_ power. Until then, he would continue to win friends and influence people here in the Ministry, preparing for that day.

Besides, who knew? Draco allowed himself a small smile. If something happened to Granger-Potter's popularity and she was sacked, he might actually find himself positioned to move into the Number One spot in Wizarding Britain's government. Wouldn't that be something, along with his father's power to help him change the face of the nation? Draco basked in the glow of that happy thought for some time before taking out his wand and tapping the white screen, resuming his monitoring of Potter's building.

=ooo=

"_Me_?" Monroe gasped. He leaned down until he was level with the boy's face, looking at him carefully. He _did_ look familiar, the journalist had to admit. "But how could _I_ be —"

"We can continue this in my workshop," Harry said, and they both floated upward into darkness. Monroe felt himself spinning end for end somehow, then stood up from the stone basin he had been leaning over before things went surreal, looking at Harry, who was regarding him with a calculating look.

"How could I be at that school?" Monroe asked again. "That _was_ the school you attended, I assume?"

"Yes," Harry confirmed. "It was. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Which makes this an interesting problem. I've been trying to remember who that boy was. He was sitting at the Ravenclaw table, but he wasn't any of my dorm mates —"

"What do you mean by 'the Ravenclaw table'?" Monroe asked. "The tables had names?"

"Hogwarts was divided into four Houses," Harry explained. "Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Students were Sorted into one of the Houses when they first arrived at school."

"Which one were you sorted into?" Monroe asked him.

Harry chuckled softly. "I was something of a special case. The Sorting Hat — it's an old wizard's hat that's placed on the head of each student in order to sort them —"

"This hat puts in one of these 'Houses,' then?" Monroe wanted to know.

"In a way," Harry agreed. "It mostly uses the student's own inclinations and desires when it does so, though — anyway, it wanted to sort me into either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor. Those Houses are mostly known for having hardworking, loyal and brave students, by the way. It thought I'd be too isolated in Ravenclaw, and in Slytherin — well, in Slytherin I'd be under a lot of pressure to be ambitious, to get ahead. Either way, it was afraid I'd end up as a Dark Lord if I ended up in one of those last two Houses."

"A Dark Lord?" Monroe echoed. "Do I want to know what that is?"

Harry didn't answer for a moment, just looked at the Muggle standing across the Pensieve from him. There wasn't much point to telling him what a Dark Lord was; he wasn't going to remember any of this conversation, anyway — by his own choice, of course. Harry certainly wasn't going to tell Monroe how close he had come to becoming a Dark Lord himself over the past 25 years. And only villains in stories revealed their plots, especially stupid ones. Harry was not stupid, much less a villain.

"You probably don't," he said. "Anyway, you've fulfilled your part of the bargain, so the interview is over. You can leave."

"Leave?" Monroe looked around the workroom. What other devices like that lightsaber were in this room, unrevealed to the world? How vast was this magical business, that men like Potter were a part of the normal world and they didn't even know about them? What would the world be like if everyone had access to magic? Would it be part of the Singularity? That much seemed almost inevitable if men like Potter were working toward it as well as men like Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom, Aubrey de Grey, and Eliezer Yudkowsky? "Don't you have any questions for me? Aren't you curious about who that boy at the table was?"

"Oh, yes, I'm very curious about who that was," Harry agreed. "But they were _your_ memories, and you don't remember how you got there, do you?"

"No," Monroe admitted, after a moment.

"Then the memories surrounding the ones you remember were probably Obliviated," Harry reasoned. "Otherwise we would have seen the ones showing why you were there."

"But who would have done that?" Monroe asked, a hint of desperation in his voice.

"Any competent wizard performing a Memory Charm knows better than to leave a trail back to himself," Harry answered. "I didn't recognize that kid, either — he might have been in one of the other Houses, but I thought I'd seen the faces of every first year when we were all Sorted, and I don't remember his. He might've been a second- or third-year, but I don't ever remember seeing his face again at the school."

"How many students attend Hogwarts each year?" Monroe asked, eager for any information about the magical world.

"It varies from year to year," Harry told him. "But it was around 800 students total, on average."

"That's a lot of kids to keep track of," Monroe pointed out.

"Most of the professors there knew everyone by name," Harry said. "At least, the ones who taught the most important subjects did."

"And what were those subjects?" Monroe prompted.

"I'd love to tell you all about them," Harry said, seriously. "But…I think it's a pretty foregone conclusion that the Ministry is going to pick you up the minute you walk out of here."

"The _Ministry_?" Monroe exclaimed. "What do _they_ know about all this?"

"Not the boys on Downing Street," Harry told him. "Though the Muggle Prime Minister is aware of our existence. I mean, he's aware that the Ministry of Magic exists and is run by people who can use magic."

Monroe looked blankly at him. Then, "Well, I should have guessed there'd be some kind of magical government running things. But what do they want with _me_? As you say, I'm just a Muggle."

"They're concerned that I might have told you about our magical society."

"But you _did_ tell me!" Monroe's voice had gone shrill. "Why'd you do that, if you knew they were going to questions me?"

"I thought I might be able to slip you by," Harry shrugged. "But no such luck this time — they were watching to see how long you spent in the building, and it's been long enough to arouse suspicion."

"Well that's just _great_!" Monroe looked super pissed off. He spun angrily away from Harry, staring across the workshop. "What are they going to _do_ to me?"

"Probably just Obliviate you and send you on your way," Harry speculated. As Monroe sighed with relief, he added, "Though they _might_ decide to make an example of you to me…"

"An example?" Monroe turned slowly to face Harry again. "What does _that_ mean?"

"Well, they can't really do anything to _me_," Harry explained. "Too much political fallout if the Minister's spouse gets put in Azkaban, you see. So they might put you in prison, as a deterrent to me trying to inform anyone else in the Muggle world about our existence."

"You're saying they'd put ME in jail to teach YOU a lesson?" Monroe said, disbelievingly.

"Something like that."

"That is just so wrong on so many levels," Monroe muttered in a plaintive voice.

Harry shrugged. "It's the way many in the Ministry think, though."

Monroe was beginning to look scared. "So how do I get out of this?"

"Out of having the magical cops take you in?" Harry looked amused. "Oh, you're not getting out of that, amigo. If they want you, they're going to take you."

"Okay —" Monroe was rubbing the back of his neck, almost ready to panic. "— okay — I mean, how do I beat the rap?"

"Well…" Harry looked unhappy. "I guess I could Obliviate the memories you have, if you're willing to erase your recording of the interview."

Monroe now looked unhappy as well, but took the Record-A-Pen out of his jacket pocket. "I can do that," he said, sliding aside the pocket clip and manipulating some small controls that were revealed. He held up the small LCD screen to Harry, showing him **0MB Recorded** displayed on it. "It's gone."

Harry gave him a skeptical look. "Is that the _only_ recording device you had on you, Monroe?"

Monroe stared at him for several seconds, then shook his head. He reached down to the bottom of his jacket, running a finger along one edge; the seam parted and another small recording device fell out. "I don't know if they would have found this, though," he said, holding it up for Harry to inspect it. "It would have registered as an RFID chip on any scanner."

"Except for any magical scanner," Harry said, looking at it closely. "Very clever, though. You'd better erase it, too."

Monroe nodded and used a ball-point pen tip to press on a small depression in the device. A few moments later it beeped twice, signifying the memory was cleared. Monroe dropped it into his jacket pocket.

"That's it," he said, spreading his arms. "I'm clean, except for what's in my head."

"Okay," Harry said. "Follow me." Harry led the journalist back through the workroom, to the door they had originally come through, where Harry's dining area was. As they both stepped through, the door slid closed and seemed to disappear behind them, as if it had never been there at all.

"This should do," Harry said, taking out his wand. "Sorry about this, James," he nodded in respect to the journalist. "I enjoyed our talk, short as it was." His wand came up —

"Maybe we can meet again," Monroe suddenly suggested. "You know — have another go at this, maybe?"

Harry gave him a grin. "We'll see," he said. "But I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you." His wand tip made small but complicated motions even as Monroe frowned at his final remark.

"What do you mean —?"

"_Obliviate_!"

Monroe's expression went slack, his eyes unseeing. Harry held the wand on him as he circled around behind the frozen figure.

"We had a nice interview," Harry said softly, speaking into Monroe's ear. "Even though you forgot to turn on your recording device. I invited you to lunch in my private dining room, filet mignon with a baked potato and vegetables, with wine; you drank a bit more than you should have, and I let you lie down for a while on a couch. When you wake up, you'll be ready to leave, and we'll exit back into my office and out into the waiting area, where you'll get your briefcase from Ginny and leave.

"You will _not_ remember being Obliviated, or even discussing it with anyone. You will not remember the recognition code nor where you learned of it, however you might have come to be at Hogwarts." Though that was something Harry intended to pursue, once the Muggle was gone. "Now, awaken."

Monroe blinked, then yawned. He turned to Harry. "Thanks for letting me take a nap, Mr. Potter. I'm sorry to have imposed on you. And thanks for lunch, it was wonderful!"

"I'm happy to have met you, Mr. Monroe," Harry smiled. "And I hope you can do something with our interview, even if your recording device missed it all."

"Oh, it was entirely my fault," Monroe pointed out. He reached out a hand, and they shook. "Good luck with your efforts on the Singularity, Mr. Potter."

Harry nodded, and the Muggle turned, exiting through Harry's office door, where Ginny passed him his briefcase and one of the other secretaries, Debbie, waited to bring him down to the ground floor lobby.

Ginny came into the room afterwards. She said nothing, but with her hand held close to her chest, made a small finger-snapping gesture. Harry nodded slightly.

"Did you have fun?" Ginny asked aloud, knowing that none of the Ministry's surveillance spells were working at the moment.

"More or less," Harry said, a bit distractedly. "I almost feel sorry for the guy — he probably won't get home tonight, if Malfoy is as thorough with him as usual. But —" he shrugged "— he asked for it, coming in here and demanding an interview and all."

"And saying the secret words," Ginny added, matter-of-factly.

"That, too."

=ooo=

Monroe was humming an old movie tune as he left Potter's building, turning toward the Underground Station that had brought him here earlier today. The interview could have gone better, at least as he remembered it, but it still wasn't bad. If he got back to his computer right away and began shaping his recollections into words, he might recapture most of the conversation.

Hmm hmm hmm, hmm-hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm-hmm,  
>Hmm hmm hmm Hmm-hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm-hmm.<br>Hmm Hm-Hmm Hmm Hmm Hm-hm-hm, hmm hmm, hmm hmm hm-hm-hm, hmm hmm, hm-hm-Hmm, hmm-Hmm-Hmmm,  
>Hmm Hm-Hmm Hmm Hmm Hm-hm-hm, hmm hmm, hmm hmm hm-hm-hm, hmm hmm, hm-hm-hmm, hm-hm-hmmm.<p>

If Monroe had been aware of the title of the song he was humming, he might have had more of a sense of foreboding, of imminent DOOM.

A half-block from the Underground entrance, he was suddenly bookended by two large men in long, black trenchcoats, who chivvied him into a nearby alley before he could so much as protest.

Each man was over six feet in height, and they were well away from the main street before Monroe regained enough wit to become indignant at their actions.

"What's going on? If it's money you want I'm afraid I have very little —"

"Da boss wants ta speak wit' youse, so shaddup an' come along peaceful-like," one of them growled in a voice that seemed too soft for such words. He looked over Monroe's head at the other man, grinning broadly. "You know," he said, in a much more erudite tone, "I've wanted an opportunity to speak like that once more for _years_ now."

"Where are you two taking me?" Monroe demanded. "I want to see some iden—" He suddenly slumped as the other man pressed a wand into his ribs and whispered a single word. The two large men stopped, holding up the unconscious journalist.

"_That_ shut him up pretty quickly," the first man said. "What'd you use?"

"Somnium," the second man said. "It's not very powerful, so it's suitable for Muggles."

The first man nodded agreement. "Da boss — I mean, Mr. Malfoy — wants us back at the Ministry as soon as possible after we pick this one up. Do you have the Portkey?"

"Of course, Mr. Crabbe." The second man brought out a small scrap of parchment. "It will activate upon the touch of three individual's fingers," he said.

Crabbe snorted. "It sounds like Mr. Malfoy didn't expect us to fail, did he?"

Mr. Goyle grinned. "Against a _Muggle_? I should think not." He maneuvered the sleeping Muggle's hand so one of his fingers touched the parchment he held, then Mr. Crabbe reached out and put a finger on it as well. There was a sudden whirl of color and wind, and the alleyway was empty once again.


	4. Interrogation 101

**Chapter Four  
><strong>**Interrogation 101**

Updated 12/02/2011

"_You know, love, we _are_ alone in here. You can say 'piss' if you want to.__"_

When Monroe awoke he found himself sitting in a small, nondescript room, his arms resting on the arms of the chair he was seated in. There was nothing else in the room but a large mirror on one wall, which Monroe immediately pegged as "two-way." There was no clock, no table, no other chairs, It was, he supposed, a typical interrogation room in a typical London police station, which he had fortunately never been in before (until now).

The first question Monroe planned for his would-be interrogators was, _Why am I here_? He'd tried to ask the two men who'd taken him in, but before he could get any answers out of them he was already here. Had he passed out, or had they done something like taser him? He couldn't remembering being hit with an electric shock, though.

Time passed, how much, Monroe couldn't say; his watch was no longer on his wrist. He'd tried to check his jacket pocket for his Record-A-Pen, but his arms were affixed to the chair, somehow, and he couldn't pull them loose. Whatever was going on here, he was just going to have to wait until they came to him.

Two large men entered the room, and Monroe sat up straight (at least, as much as he could, considering his arms were stuck to the chair), watching them warily. The larger of the pair had brown hair and seemed to wear a perpetual sneer on his face. The smaller man (though not smaller by much) had a crew cut and his dark hair looked coarse and bristly. He regarded Monroe with pinched expression, as if he would have preferred being in a badly maintained restroom rather than where he was. They were both dressed in black overcoats, shirts and pants with shiny black boots.

The larger of the two men seemed to be in charge. He positioned himself in front of Monroe while the other one stood off to one side, watching them. Both of them were regarding him with calculating looks. Monroe, for his part, could only stare impassively back at them until one of them decided to speak. It didn't take long.

"What," the big (okay, bigger) man, in a deep but surprisingly soft voice asked, "do you know about magic?"

"Magic?" Monroe gave him an inquiring, puzzled look. "What do you mean — like, 'Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out my hat?' magic, or what?"

The big man hesitated, confused. "Er — what?"

"Never saw that show?" Monroe wondered. "Maybe they never showed it here in England."

The two men looked at one another. "Never mind that," the big man said, irritably. "You know why you're here, doncha?"

"Not really," Monroe replied. "I just got out of an interview with Harry Potter-Evans-Verres and was on my way home to write it up, and you two came out of nowhere, knocked me out, and I woke up here. I'm still waiting to hear what you want."

"What we _want_," the other behemoth said, in a threatening tone. "Is for you to tell us what you an' Potter talked about."

"The S-Singularity," Monroe answered, hesitantly. He had a feeling these guys would have _no idea_ what that was.

He was right. The two men looked at one another again. "Are we supposed to know what that is?" the smaller man asked.

"Nah," the bigger man said, dismissively. "Mr. Malfoy says it's some Muggle thing Potter's working on. He says it's not going to happen for a long time, if ever."

"How does Mr. Malfoy know that?" Monroe asked, wondering who this Malfoy character was.

"'Cause Mr. Malfoy's Head Auror an' he knows loads of stuff a stupid Muggle like you don't," the smaller man snarled.

"But I know what the Singularity is," Monroe replied, emboldened by their ignorance. "And apparently neither of you do. So both of you are more stupid than a Muggle." Whatever _that_ was.

Both men stiffened. "This 'Singularity' nonsense is Muggle fairy tales!" the larger man snarled.

Monroe almost laughed. "It seems to me that you're just taking this Mr. Malfoy's word, and not trying to find out for yourself."

"It ain't our _job_ to find out for ourselves!" the other man said. "It's our job to —"

"It's your job to do what you're told!" a new voice interjected. Both men looked around. Standing in the door was a tall, thin blond man, his hair flowing freely about his head. He had pale, sharp features, and was dressed similarly to the first two men. "I didn't tell you to question the detainee."

"We thought we'd warm him up for you, Boss," the smaller man muttered. "He doesn't want to talk —"

"Don't call me 'Boss,'" the blond snapped. "And of course he doesn't want to talk! Both of you —" he jerked a thumb at the door. "— get out. I'm going to talk to him alone. Go file your daily reports — it'll be time for us to go home soon."

Both of the behemoths nodded, looking cowed by this new man's presence, and quickly beat a path to the door. After they were gone, the blond man stood regarding Monroe for several minutes. Monroe tried to ignore it and wait him out, but the silence, after the badgering he'd endured from his previous interrrogators, was unnerving.

Finally the man spoke. "You are James Monroe, is that correct?"

"Yes," Monroe answered. "Are you going to tell me why I'm here?"

"Oh, I think you know why you're here," the blond man answered. "You were just conducting an interview with Harry Potter-Evans-Verres, were you not?"

"I was," Monroe agreed. Based on what the other two men had said, it seemed like they though he'd talked with Potter about something they weren't supposed to discuss. "We weren't supposed to discuss the Singularity?"

The man snorted derision. "We don't care about that, it's Mu — it's pseudoscientific claptrap."

"You mean 'Muggle' claptrap?" Monroe asked. "The other two guys used that word a lot."

The blond was silent for several moments. He appeared to be engaged in a silent debate with himself. "You don't need to worry about that," he said at last. "I just need to know what you and Potter talked about."

"The Singularity, like I said." Monroe was beginning to feel irritated; these men, whoever they were (because it was now clear they _weren't_ the regular police) were clearly dismissive of the idea of the Singularity. Which was not an entirely new idea to Monroe — people dismissed the idea all the time, though less lately than they had in past years. "You may not like the idea but it's a lot more mainstream now than it was even five years ago."

"I doubt that Potter is really interested in it these days," the blond man retorted. "He's got more pressing concerns. It doesn't matter anyway —" he waved a hand dismissively. "Perhaps we should discuss the phrase that got you into the interview in the first place."

"What phrase is that?" Monroe looked puzzled. "'Mr. Potter, may I please have an interview?'"

"No." The blond looked annoyed. "Recognition code 927, I am a potato."

Monroe gave him a blank stare. "I've never heard that phrase before."

"Really?" The blond man wore a triumphant sneer. "How do you explain this, then?" He pointed to the mirror on the wall in front of them, and it shimmered, becoming a view screen. Onscreen was Monroe and the redhead he'd met outside Harry Potter's office, a Mrs. Thomas. As he watched, the woman was trying to steer him into leaving when he mentioned the line the blond man said he'd used.

"Well?" the blond man looked expectantly at him, when the image faded.

"That looked like me," Monroe admitted. "But I don't remember saying that."

The man was nodding slowly. "So…Obliviation, probably. Not that unexpected, really — he must have realized we were watching, dammit!"

"What's 'Obliviation'?" Monroe asked, apprehensive that it would be just what the word sounded like.

"Oh —" the blond man shrugged carelessly. "He made you forget some of your conversation with him. Perhaps most of it. I could test that, but it doesn't seem necessary."

"_How_ would you test it?" Monroe asked. If Potter had made him forget things, he _really_ wanted to find out what he'd forgotten, if possible.

The blond man gave him a calculating look. "I'd give you a few drops of Veritaserum," he said. "A few drops and you would truthfully tell everything you know about your conversation with Potter."

"I've never heard of this 'Veritaserum,'" Monroe said, slowly. "Obviously it's some kind of truth drug, but why would the British police use that kind of stuff? It sounds more like something MI5 would have. James Bond stuff."

"Police?" The blond man was giving him that calculating look again. "Oh, no…we're not the _police_, Mr. Monroe. We're the _double secret police_."

=ooo=

At that same time a few miles away, Harry Potter-Evans-Verres was sitting in the living room of his private residence reading today's copy of the _Daily Prophet_. Late afternoon was usually the first chance he got to read the wizarding newspaper, before Hermione got home and they either made dinner or went out to dine somewhere.

Harry's living room was similar to the same room in his parent's house — it was lined with bookshelves, upon which were thousands of books. Unlike his parents, however, these bookshelves held many more books than any normal bookshelf could — the result of Extension and Retrieval Charms that would allow stacks of books behind the rows showing to come forward for perusal and selection.

And those books, as numerous as they were (Harry would sometimes idly estimate to himself that his living room library contained almost 100,000 books, more than in the Hogwarts Library when he left the school) there were other libraries where he kept even more books, many of which would have most wizards gasping in surprise if they could read them. However, they were unreadable—a side-effect of a very old spell, the Interdict of Merlin, which made information about powerful spells written down by wizards unintelligible to anyone but the original author. Harry had been collecting books such as those from libraries and individual wizards across Britain for the past 20 years, beginning even before he left Hogwarts. One never knew when the Interdict might be lifted and those books could become readable by anyone.

For now, however, Harry had found an article about Hogwarts new Headmistress, Pomona Sprout, who was taking over for Minerva McGonagall, who had recently decided to retire after her 90th birthday. Headmistress Sprout had been approved by the governors of the school and today, August first, would be her official first day as Headmistress. She had announced at the ceremony that the position of Herbology Teacher had been accepted by Justin Finch-Fletchley.

Harry sighed softly to himself. It was a shame Neville wasn't around; he was a very good Herbology student — he would have made an excellent professor if he hadn't… well, there was no use dwelling on the past, Harry decided.

Harry heard the front door to their residence open. The "front door" actually led to a small waiting area containing a few chairs and access to an elevator that ran exclusively between the waiting room and the ground floor of the building, accessible to someone who could Apparate or Portkey into the room. And only Hermione (and a few others) knew the special unlocking spell that would open the door leading into their residence.

"I'm home!" Harry heard her call out a few seconds later. She walked into the living room, smiling as she saw him, and Harry put down the paper to return her greeting.

"Hello, love," he said. "Just now finishing work?"

"Yes," she nodded, sitting down in a nearby chair. "Very busy at work today," she sighed, sitting back wearily in the chair and closing her eyes. Once upon a time Hermione had rarely shown her tiredness to Harry; she tried to look tireless in front of him for much of the first year they knew one another, back at Hogwarts. Now, he hardly ever saw her when she _wasn't_ tired or busy with work. It was a pretty sure bet she wouldn't be interested in making dinner for them tonight.

"Do you fancy dinner at Mary's Place tonight?" Harry asked, naming one of the finest restaurants in Diagon Alley. Without opening her eyes, Hermione shrugged slightly. "My treat," Harry added, and Hermione smiled without opening her eyes. It was something of a joke between them that whenever Hermione wanted to go to Mary's Place, Harry would suggest the Ministry should pick up the tab since she usually did nothing but discuss Ministry business while they were there.

Perhaps tonight would be different. Harry hoped so, because he didn't want to get into a discussion about what the "official Ministry position" on his interview with the Muggle journalist Monroe was. "Dean told me Ginny said she and her brother Ron saw you in Diagon Alley at lunch."

Hermione opened her eyes to look at him. "When did he tell you that?"

"Just before I left work earlier today. They were making plans to go to dinner and she mentioned it to him."

"How did your interview go?" she asked.

"Well enough," he said, his expression not changing beyond a slight shrug of his shoulders. "I suppose it'll keep up the Muggle interest in the Singularity."

"What did you think of your interviewer?" Hermione asked, closing her eyes once again. "Was he glad to finally get to see you?"

"Oh, I suppose," Harry replied. "Even though he burst into my office without knocking, trying to catch me off-guard."

"I'm not sure I could blame him," Hermione commented. "You've been giving him and that magazine of his the runaround for months now. Why did you give him that interview, Harry?" She looked over at him, her expression curious. "You've been telling me amount of exposure they could give you wasn't worth your while."

Harry was silent a moment. "Just — something he said," he replied, finally.

"What was that?" Hermione pressed. She already knew, of course, but she wanted to give her husband the chance to tell her by his own choice.

"He knew…the recognition code phrase I used as a kid," Harry said at last.

"_Really_?" Hermione feigned surprise, feeling slightly guilty for doing so. It was hard keeping secrets from her husband, but even he couldn't be privy to all the secrets the Ministry kept — especially ones that involved _him_. "Did you find out how he knew it?"

Harry wasn't looking at her. "Yeah, eventually," he muttered.

Hermione looked at him a long moment. "Are we going to need to reserve the 'Room' at Mary's Place tonight, to talk about it?"

"Why do you ask that?" Harry looked at her then, with the most innocent face. It was never a good sign, she knew, when he looked that innocent.

"I take it that's a yes," she shook her head wearily. "I'll make the reservation."

=ooo=

Mary's Place contained a special, separate dining area known as "Mary's Room." This room, as Harry had once been told, was used by two kinds of people: the first sort were engaged in illicit dalliances, and the second sort led interesting lives.

He and Hermione were now seated in that room, perusing their menus as the waitress, a young woman neither of them recognized, waited for them to make up their minds. Harry, who had already eaten filet mignon earlier that day, decided on roasted Diracawl breast in Dirigible Plum sauce, with Sopophorus potatoes au gratin and carrots. Hermione, after intense internal debate, settled on a vegetable lasagna and a salad. The young woman bowed respectfully and silently left the room, closing the door behind her.

Hermione took out her wand, pointing it to the bolt on the door, which slid into place with a metallic _clack_. She then spoke half a dozen wards, enough to sufficiently protect them from any scyring of the room by anyone capable of wizardry of lesser caliber than, say, Albus Dumbledore himself.

"So," she said, putting away her wand. "What went on between you and that journalist, James Monroe?"

"Mostly just that interview," Harry answered. "He didn't remember where he'd heard the recognition code."

"And you were satisfied with that?" Hermione asked, skeptically. She knew Harry better than that. "What would Dean say about it, if I asked him?"

"Dean doesn't know anything," Harry said, truthfully. "Ginny heard the guy say it, though, after she'd already Obliviated him when he broke into my office."

"_Ginny_ Obliviated someone?" Hermione looked shocked.

"It was within Ministry guidelines," Harry said, in a placating manner. "He might have noticed that my office is… a bit too big for where it is on that floor."

"Never mind that, then," Hermione dismissed that issue. "Do you know that Monroe is still at the Ministry, even now, being questioned by Malfoy?"

Harry frowned. "It sounds like Malfoy's just trying to twist my tail. Monroe doesn't know anything."

"He wouldn't be there now if you hadn't made it look so suspicious in the first place," Hermione pointed out.

"Wait a minute," Harry was annoyed at her implication. "You're saying it's _my_ fault Malfoy's treating him like crap? I can't control what Draco does!"

"You can control what _you_ do, Harry!" Hermione argued. "Your interview should have taken an hour — Monroe was there for over three! Of _course_ Draco's going to be suspicious!"

"I had him stay for lunch!" Harry protested. "What's wrong with _lunch_? Malfoy's just being vindictive!"

"Well, he's got reason to be, hasn't he?" Hermione said, wearily. "You and he haven't exactly been great friends since we all left Hogwarts."

"He went one way, I went another," Harry reminded her. "You know I wasn't going to let Lucius Malfoy decide what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I already had _plans_, Hermione!"

"I know that," she said, quietly. "They didn't seem to include me then, either."

"Now that's not fair," Harry warned her. "You — you had other priorities then, too. _You_ were the one who said we were through."

"But I didn't really mean it." Hermione's voice was almost a whisper now. "I thought you'd get that. But I was wrong."

Harry's mouth twisted with frustration. "You went to university, too," he said, his voice lowering in response to hers. "It impressed the hell out of Scrimgeour when you came back, didn't it?"

"Yes," she nodded. "I wondered if it would go against me, spending four years in a Muggle college, but Scrimgeour liked my ideas. Not everyone did, though."

It was true. There were some at the Ministry who were not impressed with Muggle education, no matter how progressive its ideas, and Draco Malfoy, then an Auror, had said as much. It was debatable whether his remarks would have gotten him fired — being the son of Lord Malfoy, Draco getting sacked wasn't in the cards, even then. Lord Malfoy was still a force to be reckoned with, in the Wizengamot and in the Ministry itself. Ironically, however, it wasn't until Hermione herself became Minister that Draco was made Head Auror, under her administration.

There was silence for a time. Hermione fidgeted with a cloth napkin while Harry pretended to study the walls of Mary's Room in detail. At a sudden knock on the door Hermione jumped, then drew her wand and waved it at the door, opening the bolt and causing the door to swing open. The server, carrying their meals, appeared and quickly set them on the table, then bowed and departed. The bolt slammed shut again and wards were put up again, but neither of them spoke again for some time.

Finally Hermione looked at Harry. "So, what are you going to do about Mr. Monroe?" she asked, taking a bit of her salad.

It took Harry a while to answer — two mouthfuls of her lasagna, in fact. "Nothing, I think. If I try to intercede on his behalf it's going to look to Malfoy like I'm trying to hide something."

"And you _aren't_?" Hermione sounded extremely skeptical.

"I removed Monroe's memory about the recognition code," Harry admitted. "There's nothing else for him to talk about except the interview, and Draco thinks the Singularity is a Muggle pipe dream. He's probably scared Monroe learned something about the Wizarding world and is going to spill what he knows in that magazine he works for, or on the Web." Harry took a bite of his Diricawl breast. "This is very good, by the way. Do you want a bite?"

"Maybe later." Hermione had a worried expression on her face. "Harry. You may think Draco is out to get you, but he's not Head Auror because he's a vindictive ba- because he's vindictive. He's Head Auror because he knows how to anticipate problems and deal proactively with them. One of those problems is threats to the Secrecy Statutes. You know that —"

"Yes, I do," Harry agreed, cutting her off. He put down his fork. "Okay, look—I'll level with you. I did find out how Monroe knew the recognition code."

Hermione leaned forward, her vegetable lasagna forgotten. "How?"

Harry gave her a level look. "I used the Pensieve."

Hermione's head dropped. "Oh, Harry…" she said, into her lasagna.

"I had to _know_!" Harry exclaimed, almost pleadingly. "I haven't used that mnemonic since before I left Hogwarts!"

Hermione didn't answer right away. When she finally looked up, her expression was determined. "So," she said, with a brisk finality, "what are you going to do to help free Mr. Monroe, since you're the primary reason he's being held by the Aurors in the first place?"

"What do you want me to do?" Harry asked plaintively. "If I intervene on his behalf it's going to make Draco suspicious."

"He's _already_ suspicious!" Hermione snapped. "But he may just think this is some way for you to take the — mickey — out of him."

Harry made a show of looking about the room for several moment. "You know, love, we _are_ alone in here. You can say 'piss' if you want to."

Hermione ignored that comment. "Are you going to do something to help him, or am I going to have to do it?"

"That's not going to help at all," Harry pointed out. "Draco's going to think you're covering for me." Hermione made no response to this, either; she simply continued to stare sternly at him across the table.

Harry fidgeted unconsciously; he know that stare—it meant he wasn't talking his way out of this no matter how hard he tried.

"All right!" he said at last. "We'll stop by the Ministry on our way home; I'll convince Draco that Monroe really knows nothing."

"Because you _Obliviated_ him," Hermione added, pointedly.

"He already knows that!" Harry said, curtly.

"And how do _you_ know _that_?" Hermione challenged.

Harry cocked his head. "Because he has my office and waiting area under surveillance." _Not to mention my private dining room_, he didn't add aloud. It would be useful to keep that to himself, in case he wanted to pass some disinformation along to the Ministry snoops. Now, would his wife pretend she didn't know anything about the bugs he just mentioned?

Hermione stared at him for over a minute before she said. "How did you find that out?"

"I'm CEO of a global corporation," Harry replied, standing up, his Diricawl breast only half-finished. "I expect the competition to try and find out what I'm doing."

Hermione didn't look happy, though she stood as well, watching as Harry dropped a handful of Galleons on the ticket the server had left with their food. "The Ministry isn't your competition, Harry," she told him, a hint of sadness in her voice. "Don't make this about you and Draco and your — your pissing contest." She gave him a defiant look. "And don't make this about you and me — I'm not going to bail you out of this."

"I wouldn't expect you to," Harry said, levelly. "Draco is not going to be a problem."

=ooo=

Monroe was slumped forward in his chair, held up only by whatever held his arms to the armrests. His captor had been questioning him, seemingly for hours, for no reason Monroe could discern and seemingly no end in sight. How could he convince the man that he knew _nothing_ about what Potter was doing?

"It would be a lot simpler," the blond-haired man. Malfoy, was saying. "If you would just activate whatever's going to restore your memory when you leave here. We're going to find out anyway, eventually."

"I still don't know what you're talking about," Monroe muttered wearily. "You're the one who's saying my memory was erased — I have to take your word for it! And I have to take your word that there's some way to get that memory back."

"Potter's tricky," Malfoy replied, ignoring Monroe's excuses. Potter would have given him false memories, memories layered in place of the ones he'd removed. "There are ways he could restore the memories he took from you without you ever knowing what you were carrying that would do that. We've examined everything you were carrying on you when you arrived; none of it is enchanted, or not so that we can detect, anyway. What were you going to do when you got home?"

Monroe blinked, trying to remember. "I was — going to check my Record-A-Pen for any saved audio."

"This?" Malfoy asked, holding up the pen-like object. "How?"

"Um…twist the clip, it will reveal some buttons that can be used to download the contents to a MP3 player."

"Do you have one of these 'MP3 players'?"

"In my…in my briefcase," Monroe said, trying to remember whether there really was one in there or not. He thought there was, but how could he know? What if Malfoy had already taken it? What if _Potter_ had taken it? He had no idea who was trustworthy any more.

The blond man reached into a small pouch on his belt and muttered something Monroe couldn't hear. A moment later he began withdrawing his hand, and Monroe gaped as the pouch's lip suddenly began _widening_… as he watched, disbelieving, his entire briefcase came out of the pouch with an audible _burp_.

"What the hell?" Monroe gasped, though he felt too tired to shout as loudly as he wanted to. "How could —" He suddenly stopped as Malfoy drew a stick from another pocket with his free hand, waving it in front of himself. A small table appeared out of nowhere, and the man set Monroe's briefcase on top of it, then tapped it with his wand, causing the case to pop open.

Malfoy looked over the contents of the briefcase carefully. He finally picked up a small device the size of a lighter. "Is this it?" he asked.

Monroe nodded without saying anything. What _could_ he say? Things had just leaped past strange into the surreal. The man held out the player toward him. "How does it work?" he asked.

"My arms…" Monroe began, but at that moment both of them suddenly came free. Monroe rubbed his forearms for a moment, then took the player from Malfoy.

"Have it play whatever's on it," Malfoy ordered.

"It's empty," Monroe said, glancing at the small display. "I haven't downloaded —"

"Just activate it," the blond man ordered, in a preemptive tone. Monroe obediently pushed the play button. There was a quick double beep indicating nothing was on the device. Monroe looked at his captor, shrugging to indicate he didn't know what else to do.

"Activate any hidden recordings on it," Malfoy told him.

"There _aren't_ any," Monroe snapped, annoyed at the man's seeming paranoia. "It's just a plain old MP3 player, not some fancy James Bond device."

Malfoy started to speak again, but a tapping sound from behind the mirror diverted his attention. He looked back at the mirror, putting a hand to his ear.

"Hell," he muttered softly, then looked back at Monroe. "It seems someone's here to argue for your release." He waved the stick he carried at Monroe, whose arms were suddenly pulled back against the chair's armrests. "Sit tight."

"Like I have any choice," Monroe muttered, as the man left the room.

In the hallway outside the interrogation room were Harry and Hermione, with Crabbe and Goyle standing behind them, trying (and failing) to appear inconspicuous. Malfoy gave Potter and the Minister an expressionless look before asking of Potter, "Are you here to rescue your pet Muggle?"

"He's not my pet Muggle," Harry replied, his look equally expressionless. "But you're not going to get anything out of him."

"Oh?" Malfoy allowed himself a knowing sneer. "How do you know that?"

"Because there's nothing for him to tell you," Harry replied at once. "Remember, I spent over three hours with him earlier today."

"I'm quite aware of that," Malfoy retorted, with a short glance at Hermione, whose expression remained calm and aloof. "That's part of my problem, as you should well know."

"Yeah, I know," Harry grinned. "You probably think I planted some kind of knowledge time-bomb in his head," he pointed to his own temple for emphasis.

"Or something even more devious," Malfoy agreed, humorlessly. "There's very little I put past you these days, Potter."

"Would you two please stop this…pissing contest," Hermione finally spoke up. Both men looked at her. Behind her and Harry, Crabbe and Goyle gave each other small, knowing smiles. For a mudblood, this Minister could mix it up with Mr. Malfoy pretty good.

"Neither of you trust one another," Hermione went on. "We all know that. And neither of you are going admit you've gone too far in this — this fiasco of an interrogation. But both of you have; Draco, because there's no good reason to suspect this Monroe of knowing anything he shouldn't, and Harry, because he should never have let the man come under Ministry scrutiny in the first place.

"So I want you the two of you to get past this petty bickering amongst yourselves and _solve the problem_," Hermione declared, with finality.

Harry was giving her a look of mild amusement. "I thought you weren't going to intervene in my behalf," he commented.

"I haven't," Hermione retorted. "I'm intervening in Mr. Monroe's behalf. _He's_ the one whose time you're wasting right now."

"As well as mine," Draco added, giving Harry a hard stare. "_If_ all this is unnecessary and the Muggle really knows nothing. Which I doubt," he finished.

Harry folded his arms across his chest, saying nothing. It was hard to tell whether he was simply being stubborn or whether some deeper, more devious plot was being hatched within his brain.

"Alright," he said at last. "I'll tell you what I know. I found out where Monroe heard the recognition code phrase."

"Finally." Malfoy waited expectantly.

"He saw it written on a scrap of paper I left on the Ravenclaw table next to him at breakfast, my first day at Hogwarts."

"What?" Hermione and Draco both exclaimed at the same time. Behind them, even Crabbe and Goyle were jolted by this news. The Minister and the Head Auror glanced at one another, then Draco spoke.

"He's a _Muggle_, Harry! How could he _possibly_ have been at Hogwarts? Did you know about this, Minister?"

Hermione shook her head. "He told me he found out, but not the details, until just now. Harry, what you're saying is impossible."

"I know that," Harry agreed, evenly. "But that's what I saw in the Pensieve."

"_You used the Pensieve on him_?" Draco practically shouted. "No wonder you Obliviated him!"

"I slipped a Hypnotic Potion into his food before I showed him anything magical," Harry replied. He had indeed done that, but the dosage was so small that the effects would have lasted only a minute or so — Harry had only wanted enough in the Muggle's system that it would register if checked for, giving him a valid reason for revealing magic to a Muggle. "It was supposed to last longer, but I must've miscalculated how much of it he ate. He woke up while we were still in the Pensieve, and I had to Obliviate him. Otherwise I would have just given him a post-hypnotic suggestion not to remember what he'd seen, and you'd have picked that up during your questioning." The handy thing about being a perfect Occlumens, Harry knew, was that even staring directly into Malfoy's eyes, he knew there was no way the Head Auror could tell he was lying. It was legal to reveal the existence of magic to a Muggle if he or she were already under the influence of a mind-altering potion or spell (or if they were a blood relative, in the case of Muggle-borns).

"I didn't detect that," Malfoy replied, not surprisingly, and Harry reflected that there was no way for him to be sure that Draco wasn't a perfect Occlumens as well — it was certainly something Lord Malfoy would have ordered his son to train for. On the other hand, Draco _might_ have tested for it and gotten a false negative result. "I've been waiting for you to admit your reason for Obliviating him."

He was probably lying about that, Harry concluded. So — Draco was a perfect Occlumens as well. Another tidbit of information for him to file away about the Head Auror. Aloud, however, he said only, "What do you make of his memory of being at Hogwarts, then?"

Draco was silent for several seconds, contemplating. "It sounds like a false memory," he said at last. "I don't remember anyone there named James Monroe."

"Neither do I," Hermione chimed in. "But why would anyone put a false memory like that into a Muggle?"

"To send Harry a message," Draco suggested. That seemed pretty obvious. It was the kind of setup Draco himself would have concocted, if he were serious about getting Harry Potter into trouble — try to trip him up, get him to do something illegal so he could nail him. As it was, Harry was skirting the edges of legality with the Hypnotic Potion (if he'd actually used, it; Draco had lied about detecting it and Harry might have fallen for that, but it was unlikely). He didn't have enough to bring Harry before the Wizengamot for violating the Secrecy restrictions; you had to _knowingly_ violate them, which Harry hadn't (if his story was true, and Draco couldn't disprove it at the moment, not without corroborating evidence from Monroe).

"What kind of message would _that_ be?" Hermione wanted to know. She couldn't quite see into the more subtle moves some Dark wizards might try, things Harry and Draco were both well accustomed to, but it was obvious that anyone using a Muggle this way was up to no good.

"That things aren't as they appear," Harry said. "Monroe couldn't have been at Hogwarts, but his memories indicate he was, so someone is manipulating all of this." He did not look happy. Usually it was _him_ manipulating things — he did not care to have someone trying to pull his strings.

"What do you want to do, then?" Draco asked, though he wasn't sure he was going to agree with Harry's answer.

"Let him go," Harry said. "Obliviate any memories he has of this place, place him in his home, asleep, and let him wake up normally tomorrow. Let him think he went to bed too tired to write anything yesterday."

"And how does _that_ position us to find out what's really going on?" Draco asked, skeptically.

"If someone's pulling Monroe's strings, he'll show up again," Harry hypothesized. "And it's almost certain someone's manipulating him." _And he was going to find out who that was_, Harry promised himself.

Draco frowned. If Harry was right about this, it was a good way to shunt him and the Ministry out of the way while he interrogated Monroe about it at his leisure. On the other hand, the questioning of Monroe was going nowhere at the moment — if there was something he was hiding, it was hidden from _Monroe_ as well, probably by whoever was manipulating him. He would have to be extra-vigilant about monitoring Potter's movements and contacts for the next few weeks.

"Very well," he said at last. He looked past Harry and Hermione to his two subordinates. "You two, get Monroe back to his apartment and remove his memories of being here in the Ministry or of anyone to do with it, including yourselves. Put him to sleep and leave no trace of yourselves in his apartment."

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy," Crabbe nodded, and they went into the room where Monroe was sitting, still fixed to his chair.

As they left, Harry muttered, "_Good_ minions," under his breath, but still audible enough to be heard. Crabbe shot him a look, but Malfoy shook his head fractionally and the big man turned away with a grunt, saying nothing.

"You know," Draco said, almost conversationally, after they were gone. "Both Vincent and Gregory are fully qualified in their professions at the Ministry — you don't have to keep rubbing that in." Harry made no comment, simply holding up his hands in a gesture of no contest.

"Well, I'm going home," Draco added, when it was clear Hermione had nothing further to say. "Both of you have a good evening." He walked away from them.

A few moments later both Harry and Hermione turned and began walking toward the elevators that would take them to the Atrium and from there, a Floo trip back to their building. "Do you really think someone else is involved?" Hermione asked as they entered the elevator.

"I don't know," Harry answered honestly. "But I don't know anyone beside Draco who might have pulled this off, and I don't think he's the one this time." He paused for a moment, considering. "Maybe I should have a chat with my experts on impossible situations."

=ooo=

James Monroe awoke early the next morning, his thoughts fuzzy and confused. He was in his own bedroom, he could tell, but how he got home or what he did before going to sleep he had no idea. In fact, he could remember nothing that had happened after he walked out of the TBC building the day before.

Monroe sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. What _did_ he remember from yesterday? It all seemed a jumble of disassociated memories; the only thing he could recall clearly was his interview with Harry Potter —

A clear thought suddenly burned in his brain, something he'd known before, but had somehow forgotten: _Recognition code 927, I am a potato_.

And with that, all of yesterday suddenly returned, unbidden, into his mind. Monroe stared upward, astonished, at the memories that suddenly filled his head. If only _half_ of this wasn't just some dream or hallucination, then he was sitting on the biggest story of the century, or the millennium. Monroe grabbed a notepad and pencil off his nightstand and began furiously writing down what he recalled.


	5. The Lords of Chaos Ride Again

**Chapter Five  
><strong>**The Lords of Chaos Ride Again  
><strong>Updated 12/16/2011

"_Chaos Lords, Evermore, yes we are__!"_

=ooo=

While Mary's Place afforded fine eating and a secure environment (Mary's Room) for sensitive conversations, there were other places in Diagon Alley that were equally secure, if not more so.

A case in point was a shop situated almost at the end of Diagon Alley — number 93, the location of Weaselys' Wizard Wheezes, operated by Fred, George and Ron Weasley, and their wives. The three wives, Verity, Angelina, and Luna, were at that moment running the noisy, bustling business while their husbands "slacked off," at least to their way of thinking, in a lunch meeting with Harry Potter-Evans-Verres, held in the infamous "Chaos Room" on the first floor of the building, just below their three personal apartments.

The room was now locked down and warded with no less than thirty-four protection spells, making the room even more secure than the private dining area at Mary's Place. Four robed, hooded and masked figures sat around a plain wooden table enjoying a feast of fish and chips, along with foamy mugs of Merlin's Best Mead, their masks pushed up enough to allow them to eat unimpeded. No one had spoken since the meal had begun, since all of the four Lords of Chaos had learned the importance of finishing their meals, which somehow never seemed to happen if they began speaking before the food was gone.

Each mask worn by the Lords was expressive of its owner's temperament. Two of the masks were golden in color, both of them at the moment displaying the smiling face of Comedy. These two masks held an enchantment that caused their expressions to change with the feelings and emotions of their wearing. More often than not, both masks would change at same time.

The third mask, worn by the youngest Weasley brother, was long and white, with sad black eyes and a long, open mouth, from the wearer's favorite character, Ghostface from the Scream movies. That mask was now pushed to one side as its wearer hungrily devoured the planks of deep-fried cod in front of him, washing down his meal with gulps of mead.

The fourth and final mask was white as well, with a reddish stain surrounding the wide, grinning mouth of the mask and blackened stains around the eyeholes, representing the most Chaotic character its wearer knew: the Joker. He had already finished his meal and sat quietly going over the major points he planned to discuss at this hastily-called meeting. Yesterday had been a surreal day, even by his standards, and he wanted to discuss the experience with other acknowledged experts of the surreal.

Harry had briefly considered not inviting Ron to attend this meeting. Ron was the newest member of the Lords of Chaos, having joined only after his marriage to Luna and he began working at WWW with Fred and George and their wives. Harry also knew that Ron had nursed a long-time resentment of him over Hermione; they had briefly dated in their sixth year, when Hermione was experimenting with seeing other people. She and Harry had not resumed their own relationship until after both of them had finished college, in 2003 — the year Harry had started TBC Enterprises and Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour brought her aboard the Ministry in the Department of International Magical Cooperation to run the International Magical Office of Law Department. Ron still had a lingering crush on Hermione, Harry knew. In fact, just about everyone in Ron's family knew it, though none of them would ever tell him so — Ron would likely die of mortification if he ever found out. So, Harry would just grin and bear the resentment. And after all, Ron had turned into a valuable member of Team Weasley — he had come up with several money-spinning items over the past decade, after he'd joined WWW in 2006, two years after he had married Luna Lovegood, and left his job at the Ministry, when Hermione had become Minister of Magic.

At length the last piece of fish had been finished off, the last chip chomped, and the last mug of mead quaffed. Masks were pulled back into place, a wave of a wand Vanished the wrappers and empty mugs from the table, and a deep voice called the meeting to order. "Let's have this meeting come to order, shall we?"

"We shall," the others intoned. "Beginning with the singing of the Song of Chaos!" Everyone cleared their throats, then began:

_ Chaos Lords, we are Four, yes we are!  
><em>_Chaos Lords, Evermore, yes we are!  
><em>_Never will there be any Order in us,  
><em>_It's only Chaos for us, evermore, evermore!  
><em>_Ever will we seek Disorder in us,  
><em>_It's only Chaos for us, this we swore, this we swore!  
><em>

(sung to the tune of Star Wars' "Imperial March")

The original Song of Chaos had been simpler ("doom" being the only word used in the song), but Fred and George had soon added more lyrics. Adding Ron to the Order had had made their number four, which allowed for a slightly better rhyme (instead of "Chaos Lords, we are Three, yes we be!").

Fred wiped away a nonexistent tear from the side of his mask, its mouth now turned downward in Tragedy. "I really love that song," he said, softly. "It puts me in a very chaotic mood."

"Very appropriate," George agreed. His own mask had a look of Bemused Sadness on it. "Shall we waive the reading of the previous meeting's minutes?"

"Seems like a good idea," Ron noted, wryly. "Since I don't have them anyway."

"Why did you become secretary, then?" Fred remarked, disapprovingly.

"Because you made me," Ron retorted. Fred and George's masks both smiled.

"Ah, knew there was a good reason," George said, as his and his twin's masks now showed Amusement.

"Ahem," Harry said, softly, and three masks turned toward him. "I've called this meeting of the Lords of Chaos to discuss a mystery I discovered yesterday during my interview with James Monroe, the Muggle magazine journalist." He went on to explain about seeing Monroe as a child at Hogwarts, an apparent impossibility as he was a Muggle, and Monroe's inability to explain why he'd been there.

Fred and George's masks were both showing Intense Concentration on them. "That's a poser," Fred finally muttered, his mask changing to Bewildered Confusion. "The most obvious first guess would be a false memory."

"Checked for that," Harry nodded. "If it was a false memory, it was created by a Perfect Occlumens, and this Muggle couldn't be one of those."

Ron spoke from behind his mask. "So maybe some wizard is out to get you, using this Muggle as a cat's-paw."

"That was the obvious second guess," Harry agreed. "But I detected no traces of magic on him at all, except for my own spells." One of the catch-22's of magic use was that no matter how carefully a wizard cleaned up after himself, traces of magic remained on anything it had been cast upon, whether mineral, vegetable, or animal — or Muggle. "If some wizard could remove every trace of his enchantments on Monroe, I'd like to meet him."

"That doesn't leave us many options," Fred's mask showed Intense Concentration once again.

"I know," Harry replied levelly. "I may have to hire the three of you to try and sleuth this out, if we can't come up with a reasonable hypothesis or two to work with during this meeting. If I didn't know better," he continued, smiling behind his Joker mask, "I'd think_ you_ did this — it has all the earmarks of the Rita Skeeter scandal you pulled back in 1991, when she was out to get me."

Fred and George's masks glanced toward each other, Wry Embarrassment flashing across them. "Harry," Fred said, looking back at him. "There's something we never told you about that prank…"

=ooo=

"_What_?" Harry shouted, his Joker face almost mirroring the look of stunned surprise on his hidden face. "_You don't know how you did that_?"

"It's why we never told you," George admitted, his mask showing Sheepish Chagrin. "We didn't know ourselves."

The first time Harry had learned the details of _The Prank of the Century_ (which is how he had thought of it ever since it happened) was when he purchased a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ during a trip to Diagon Alley with Professor Quirrell to get some Christmas spending money from his vault at Gringotts on the first Sunday of October 1991. The headline had read:

**Harry Potter**  
><strong>Secretly Betrothed<strong>  
><strong>to Ginevra Weasley<strong>

The evidence provided by the article had been quite compelling. Skeeter had claimed to have seen the original proceedings of the restricted Wizengamot session that heard the details of the contract between one Arthur Weasley (Fred, George and Ron's father) and one James Potter (Harry's father) that included testimony by the Grand Manager of Gringotts, one of the Ministry's Unspeakables, a Bavarian seer, a few centaurs, as well as a prophecy involving, apparently, Harry, Ginny, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, even though no names had been named. Skeeter's article had gone on at length with all the lurid details about Mr. Weasley's desperation and greed, James Potter's cunning and his manipulation of the situation, and the final approval of the goblin Grand Manager, who had affixed the Great Seal of Gringotts to the contract, which demanded the hand in marriage of Ginevra Weasley, recently born at that time, to Harry James Potter, James Potter's son, in payment for the debt Arthur Weasley owed him, a debt incurred when James Potter, an Auror, had killed a Death Eater who had placed Mr. Weasley under the Imperius Curse, thus freeing him. In return, Mr. Weasley had demanded a bride price of ten thousand Galleons.

The only problem with all of this compelling evidence was that it was completely contradicted by the facts. The original proceedings of the Wizengamot contained details on no such betrothal, the dragon-guarded vault supposedly holding the betrothal contract held no such contract, and Arthur Weasley, when questioned by the Ministry, remembered no such contract with James Potter, whom he barely knew, nor even that he had ever been Imperiused. The veracity of the article in shambles, both Skeeter and the editor of the _Prophet_ had disappeared shortly thereafter, presumably shamed beyond all recovery.

Harry had pleaded, begged, had even whined abjectly, trying to get Fred and George to reveal the details of how they had done it, but they had merely grinned evilly and left Harry hanging. Until this very day, he had never known that the twins themselves could never figure how they had done all that with the forty Galleons seed money Harry had given them to publicly humiliate Rita Skeeter at her own game.

In the here and now, he was staring at the twin golden masks in outraged confusion. "_It's been __twenty-five__ bloody years_! Why didn't you tell me before _now_?"

George's mask took on the image of Bewildered Innocence. "We just never thought about it after that day you asked us to tell you what we'd done, Harry."

"Never _thought_ about it?" This outburst came, surprisingly, from Ron. "Didn't you know Ginny _read_ that article in the _Prophet_? Dad brought home a copy of the paper the Monday after it appeared in the paper, to show Mum, and Ginny got ahold of it somehow! She wrote me asking if it was true, was she really betrothed to Harry Potter! I tried telling it couldn't be true, that Dad would never do anything like that, but she wanted me to ask _you two_!"

"Which you never did," Fred pointed out, laconically, though his mask, and George's, were both showing Mortified Empathy on it for their sister.

"Right, what was I gonna say — 'Hey Fred and George, did Dad really sell Ginny's hand in marriage to Harry Potter's father for ten thousand Galleons?' If he did, he never spent a Knut of that on _us_!" Ron's Ghostface mask didn't change expression like Fred and George's, but Harry could feel the Outraged Anger radiating from the youngest Weasley brother. "Mum wrote me a few days later, the Aurors came and talked to Dad, and they cleared him of doing anything wrong, but they never told Ginny a thing — figured she was too young to understand…" Ron's mask was shaking back and forth. "But she's always believed that someday Harry would tell her that they were supposed to be together, that he had to — m-marry — Hermione for political reasons…" Ron's mask glanced momentarily toward Harry, who could feel the look of bitter resentment that Ron shot at him behind his mask. "I can't believe you two never figured that out about her."

"Ron, look —" George began, his voice conciliatory. "We'll tell Ginny, we'll make things right with her —"

"Damn _straight_ you will," Ron growled, anger still radiating from him. He folded his arms across his chest and turned away from them, looking as if he would refuse to say anything else during the meeting.

_Well_, Harry thought. _Things certainly weren't going as he'd hoped they would during this meeting_. But perhaps that was appropriate for a group that called itself the "Lords of Chaos." Ginny had been nursing a secret crush on him, all these years? It explained a few things about her that Harry noted over the years — the Muggle training she'd taken after retiring from the Holyoke Harpies, all of time she'd spent with him at TBC working late into the evening to finish projects; even her marriage to Dean Thomas, whom she'd dated while at Hogwarts, when Harry brought Dean onboard TBC as his head of security; Dean left the Auror Department at the Ministry to come work for him, for better pay and benefits.

But all of this was still secondary to his primary motivation for calling this meeting: Harry still had to work out how Monroe could have been at Hogwarts in 1991 when he was clearly a Muggle, and had never been seen again at Hogwarts by any of them gathered here. Until he did that, his ultimate goal was in jeopardy.

"We'll set things straight with Ginny," Harry agreed, quietly. "I'll talk to her when I get back —"

Ron laughed, a single harsh, barking sound. "Why bother?" he said bitterly, his mask still turned away from the other three Lords of Chaos. "You've got your perfect little life — why muck with it?"

"Ron!" Fred said sharply. "It's not Harry's fault —"

"Maybe it is," Harry interrupted. "I did ask you and George to take on my Rita Skeeter project. And, however it was accomplished, Ginny and your parents were pulled into it. That makes it my fault." He was looking at Ron as he said it.

"We don't see it that way, Harry," George argued. "You had no idea what we were going to come up with. Neither did we, for that matter." Both Fred and George's masks were showing Sheepish Embarrassment. "The last thing either of us remembers is that old Ambrosius Flume turned down our request for his help in the Skeeter scam. We figured Flume pointed us to someone who could help us, but wanted us Obliviated afterwards so we couldn't implicate him in the scam if we were questioned."

"That's all well and good," Ron said, still looking away from all of them. "But didn't you at least _consider_ what a prank like that was going to do to Ginny, not to mention Dad and Mum?"

"I'm sure they did," Harry answered before either Fred or George could open their mouths. "But, there's something else to consider as well."

Ron's hood turned, bringing part of his Ghostface mask into view. "Like what?" he wanted to know.

"That Fred and George weren't the ones who thought up the Prank — that someone else, someone who didn't bother to consider the consequences to your family, came up with it," Harry said.

Fred and George both blinked at the same moment. "Harry," Fred said gently — it was gallant of Harry to try and exculpate them in Ron's eyes — but still! "Harry, that kind of Prank is right up our alley, chaotically speaking. George and I _must have_ come up with it — we just don't know how we pulled it off on a budget of forty Galleons."

"Unless whoever Obliviated you put the suggestion in your minds that you had come up with the Prank," Harry pointed out. Fred and George's masks frowned with Obstinate Stubbornness at that — it was inconceivable that, after all these years, they might _not_ have come up with the Prank of the Century.

"_Who_ could have done it, then?" Fred wanted to know. "Nobody even questioned us about it, but we were the obvious choices among the student body at Hogwarts, except for, well, _you_, Harry."

Harry had been questioned by Aurors, under Veritaserum, with Dumbledore present and giving the Aurors scary looks, and had been completely exonerated. "Right," Harry agreed. "_Among the students_," he added, pointedly.

Fred and George's masks grinned with Skeptical Humor. "You think a teacher had something to do with it?" Fred asked, doubtfully, then looked to George with Stunned Realization on his mask. "Wait a mo'," he said. "There was that thing with Dumbledore in the hallway, afterwards…"

Harry's Joker mask leaned forward intently. "What do you mean? What happened?"

"We were walking down a seventh-floor corridor a day or two later," George explained, "and Dumbledore walked past us. He happened to sneeze just then, and a small package slipped out of one of his pockets without him noticing. Or, we thought so at the time. Fred and I picked up the package and started to call him back, but we noticed a tag on the package that read "to Fred and George" on it. We opened it and found two WardMaster 1000 ward-breaking monocles in it. Real top-of-the-line magic, those WardMasters.

"At the time," George went on. "We just thought Dumbledore was rewarding us for a job well done. It never occurred to either of us until just now that he might've done that to make us think we'd actually come up with the Prank. We never thought that Dumbledore himself might have been behind it!"

"And we never told anyone about those monocles until now," Fred added. "Not even Lee Jordan. If anyone found out we had them, we'd have been in McGonagall's office faster than a Firebolt Mark V, getting a lecture and probably detention for a _year_, if not outright expulsion."

"You never even told _me_!" Ron snapped in an outraged tone.

"Just protecting you, little brother," Fred said, smoothly and soothingly.

"And ourselves," George added, his mask displaying a Roguish Grin. "You never could keep a secret, Ron." Ron's robed shoulders gave a small, angry shrug.

"There's another possibility," Harry spoke up once again. "It might've been Quirrell."

The room went completely silent for several seconds. "Quirrell read Skeeter's article in the _Prophet_ right after I did," he said. "And _at the time_ he seemed quite surprised when I told him that someone at Hogwarts had pulled it off."

"You didn't tell him you'd asked _us_ —?" Fred's mask wore a look of Incredulity.

"No," Harry shook his head. "But he guessed it was you two. I thought he'd figured it out on his own. But if anyone other than Dumbledore was capable of pulling off the Prank, it was him."

There was more silence. Even Ron had turned back to face them when Quirrell was mentioned. No one wanted to mention all the trouble the Defense professor had caused for Harry by the end of his first year at Hogwarts. But, it had all been resolved and Harry had come out on top, somewhat surprisingly — Quirrell had been quite good at his job of Defense professor that year, and he had been much more formidable as an adversary than as a teacher and mentor.

"So…" Fred said, after some time had passed. "How do we figure out whether Quirrell has got anything to do with this Monroe journalist?"

"He can't have!" Ron objected. "He's dead!"

Harry nodded slowly. "He _should_ be dead, that's true. But short of coming up with the Resurrection Stone, assuming _it_ does what the stories say it does, we have no way of testing that idea."

Everyone fell quiet after that, trying to see some way that Quirrell could still be alive. But none of them, save for Harry, knew the truth behind Quirinus Quirrell and why he'd come to Hogwarts in the fall of 1991. _That_ was a secret he intended never to divulge to another person, living or dead.

=ooo=

"How much longer are they going to be?" A harried Verity asked during a rare lull in the rush of customers that bustled through their shop during the course of a normal business day. She glanced upward, as if she could see through the ceiling of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes into the room where they were gathered with Harry Potter-Evans-Verres, probably discussing their glory days at Hogwarts.

"They haven't had a meeting with Harry in years now," Angelina reminded her. "Probably a lot of catching-up to do."

"They can have business lunches _after_ work, you know," Verity complained, watching potential customers looking through the front windows of their shop. "They're called business _dinners_."

From behind the counter Luna, who had just finished ringing up a customer's purchases, smiled dreamily and mused, "I think it's interesting when the men aren't on the floor — we seem to sell so much more when they're away, don't you think?"

"Is that how it seems?" Angelina asked, amused. "I always thought we just do a better job of selling than they do — especially Ron."

"Ron would have made a better Auror than a salesman," Luna replied. "But he didn't think he could get the five N.E.W.T.S. he needed to join the program. Novelty salesman was a good second choice for him, I suppose."

"Would you still be working with your father on the _Quibbler_ if you hadn't married Ron?" Verity asked Luna, then walked off to help a customer who was looking around for some help.

"I still do help Father," Luna answered, not realizing Verity was gone. "Especially when he needs a particularly insightful headline. I gave him that one for last month's issue." She pulled a copy of the issue out from under the counter, showing the headline emblazoned across the top of the front page:

**Head Auror Malfoy**  
><strong>Secretly Betrothed to<strong>  
><strong>Minerva McGonagall's Ghost.<strong>

Angelina smiled. "One of the classics," she said, nodding appreciatively. "Right up there with the Harry secretly betrothed to _you_, Luna."

Luna turned protuberant eyes on George's wife. "He _was_ secretly betrothed to me, but he and Father worked out an agreement. It's very hush-hush, I'm not even supposed to _think_ about it, much less talk about it."

"I guess we'd better forget you even mentioned it, then," Angelina grinned.

"You should," Luna said, seriously. "I'll have to remember to forget about it as well."

Angelina nodded, turning to hide her amusement from Luna, who was very sweet and a wonderful person, even if she was barmy as a bagful of ferrets.

The shop was beginning to slow down some, now that lunch was over for everyone (_almost everyone_, Angelina reminded herself, thinking of Verity's annoyance with their husbands' very long lunch with Harry Potter). But if Harry Potter-Evans-Verres could spare an hour and a half for lunch with old friends, who were they to argue with him, and them? Being "in business" with Harry had never been anything but good for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes; they received rental discounts and perks at Gringotts that no other business had, and as far as Angelina could tell, rental space here in Diagon Alley hadn't changed in years, for anyone.

It would be interesting to hear the conversation that had been going on upstairs for the past ninety minutes, Angelina reflected. Harry Potter-Evans-Verres was a very interesting wizard; he'd left Hogwarts with six N.E.W.T.S., a tie with Albus Dumbledore back in 1899. And _then_ he'd gone on to college at Oxford, graduating with two degrees in three-and-a-half years. Within a year after graduating from that prestigious Muggle institution, he had started a corporation and built it into a global power. Somewhere in there he'd found the time to take over Gringotts from the goblins and buy up most of the property in Diagon Alley. If Angelina had known the Ravenclaw a little better she might have taken a run at him herself.

But she and George had grown close over their years at Hogwarts, and he was certainly more approachable than Harry had been, back then, even after he and Fred started WWW. She might have married Harry Potter for happiness (and money, lots and lots of money), but she married George for love. She could only hope Fred and Verity had married for the same reason.

Ron and Luna were a different matter. Angelina was virtually certain that Ron had "settled" for Luna, even though she was equally certain that they loved one another. It was pretty obvious to anyone who saw Ron on a regular basis, though, that his soulmate was someone else — someone that was now married to Harry Potter. The question was — had Luna figured it out by now? Angelina certainly hoped not, though she couldn't see how Luna could have missed it.

But then, Luna was bat-dung crazy.

Angelina's thoughts were interrupted by a customer who had wandered close to where she was standing. The man was looking around as if he'd never seen a place like WWW before — evidently he was a first-time customer.

"May I help you find something, sir?" she asked, walking toward him. The man started slightly, surprised that she'd spoken to him, then scratched his head sheepishly.

"I'm just looking," he said, perhaps a bit too quickly to be completely true. He was staring at her, looking for all the world like he wanted to ask another question but wasn't sure he should. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision.

"I — ah, thought I might find Harry Potter here," he said, hesitantly.

Angelina blinked. "As a matter of fact, he is," she replied. "But he's in a meeting at the moment. It shouldn't last much longer —" she hoped, it had been going on for over 90 minutes by now! "— if you'd care to wait for him to come down."

"Thank you," the man said, then looked around the store again. "All of this looks very fascinating. Are you one of the Weasleys?"

"I'm married to George Weasley," she told him. "He's one of the owners of the shop. Is there anything you'd like to look at while you're waiting for Mr. Potter?"

The man looked around for a second, then seemed to select one of the items off the shelf at random. "What's this do?"

"A Shield Hat," Angelina nodded, taking it from him. "When you put it on it activates an invisible Shield Charm — you can challenge your friends to try and jinx or hex you, and the shield will protect you from most minor spells. Guaranteed for at least one hundred Shields or your money back."

The man took the hat and was nodding as if he understood, but there was a look in his eyes that made Angelina think he was hiding something. She took the hat from him and casually placed it back on the shelf. "If you're not interested in that," she said, leading him to another shelf, "we have a variety of novelty wands that will do anything from turning into a rubber chicken when waved to leaping out of the wielder's hand and beating him about the head and shoulders."

"Do you have any real wands?" the man asked.

Angelina gave him an odd look. "You can buy real wands at Ollivanders, a few doors down. Mr. Ollivander has passed on, of course, but it's being run now by another one of the Weasley brothers, Bill, for ten years now. Bill took over the business when Mr. Ollivander died in 2006."

"Can a non-magical person use a wand?" the man asked.

_Another_ odd question! "Of course not," Angelina said, frowning. "Only wizards can use wands. Why would you even _ask_ that?"

"Sorry," the man muttered, looking away from her and toward the stairs near the back of the shop. "I — guess I just wasn't thinking. I'll just wait for Mr. Potter."

But by now Angelina had gotten suspicious. "What's your business with Mr. Potter, if I may ask?"

"I just have to talk to him," the man said, evasively. "We have some unfinished business to attend to."

"You might have gone to his business address for that," Angelina said, evenly. "Yet you chose to come here. Why?"

The man was silent for some time before finally shaking his head. "I thought it would be better to meet him here than at his business office. Things didn't work out very well the last time I met him there."

"What happened?" Angelina asked. _How_ did this man know Harry Potter? He didn't seem like any wizard she'd ever met before, but Muggles _couldn't_ get into Diagon Alley without someone with a wand helping them.

The man put on a wry expression. "I don't think he ever expected to see me again," he said, flatly. "But here I am, like the cat that came back the very next day."

Angelina shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea, sir. Harry Potter is not someone you should be messing with, no matter who you are. You haven't told me your name yet, by the way."

"My name?" the man replied. "I'm James Monroe."


	6. The Cat Came Back

**.**

Chapter Six

**The Cat Came Back…  
><strong>Updated 1/14/2012

"_And who do you think I am, Potter?"_

**=ooo=**

"James Monroe?" Verity had finished with her customer and walked over to where Angelina and Monroe were talking. "Aren't you that Mu—" she caught herself "—er, that man that visited Harry's business the other day, the journalist?"

"Yes," Monroe nodded. "But I've discovered a few things about myself since then, and I wanted to talk to him about them."

"What things?" Verity asked, looking suspicious and concerned. This man, according to Fred, had been pestering Harry Potter for months for an interview for a Muggle magazine, about some crazy Muggle idea called the Singulary, or something like that. How could he have even made it into Diagon Alley in the first place, if he was a Muggle? Had some wizard let him in? Who would allow a Muggle to walk around in Diagon Alley unattended?

As if reading her thoughts, Monroe reached into his jacket and withdrew a slender piece of wood. "I picked this up at Ollivanders before I came here. Mahogany, twelve inches, with a dragon heartstring core." He put the wand away. "Bill remembered my name as well — apparently Harry Potter has talked a lot about me to all of you in the past few days. He was surprised to see me in Diagon Alley. He told me Harry and his brothers were having a meeting, purpose unknown, but I suspect it was to discuss me."

Verity and Angelina looked at one another, concern on both of their faces. How could Monroe guess all this? Verity tried again, "How could you —"

"How could I have gotten into Diagon Alley without a wand?" Monroe guessed her question. "Well, one of the customers in the Leaky Cauldron let me in, after I'd explained to the proprietress that I'd lost my first wand —"

"How did you know where the Leaky Cauldron was?" Angelina interrupted. "Did Harry tell you?"

"No, it was just something that popped into my head when I woke up after the Aurors Obliviated me and put me back in my apartment."

"_Aurors_?" Verity was surprised. "What do you know about Aurors?"

"Perhaps I should speak with Harry about this," Monroe suggested. "It's kind of complicated. Until this morning, I had no idea I was a wizard."

Verity and Angelina both looked surprised, but Luna, who had come up and was listening as well, nodded knowingly. "He was probably one of the wizards who disappeared during the height of the Rotfang Conspiracy, back in the '90's."

"Luna!" Verity frowned disapprovingly. "I thought we decided that —" she _was_ going to say that the Rotfang Conspiracy was some wild idea that her father Xenophilius had come up with, but changed mid-sentence to "— decided that the Rotfang Conspiracy was disbanded when Hermione Granger became Minister of Magic."

"Oh yes," Luna agreed, complacently. "But this man could have been abducted by the Conspiracy before then." She looked at Monroe. "What do you know about gum disease?"

"_What_?" Monroe looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"Never mind, it's not important," Angelina butted in. She turned to Luna, who was giving her a hurt look. "I mean, what we need to understand is what led Mr. Monroe here, not where he's been for the past two decades, or however long he's been living as a Muggle."

She turned back to Monroe. "Can you tell us what happened when you met with Harry Potter on Monday?"

**=ooo=**

It was Ron, interestingly enough, who asked the question first. "So…d'you think that it's possible that _he's_ come back again?"

Fred and George raised their eyebrows, looking at Harry, but he could tell they weren't surprised, but rather interested in what Harry would say. It was also obvious from the emphasis Ron had put in the sentence who 'he' was. He was referring to Voldemort.

"I don't know how that could be," Harry replied. He had to measure his words carefully here, because none of the Weasleys knew the secret of Voldemort's seeming immortality. Only a very few people ever had: Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, and Minerva McGonagall were the ones Harry was sure had known about Horcruxes before Harry learned about them, and he suspected that an ex-Auror at the time, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, had known as well. Almost everyone on that short list was dead now, and the only other person Harry had told about them was Hermione, and she only after the fact.

Horcruxes weren't something you wanted the general Wizarding population knowing about — not now, not when Harry was so close to his breakthrough…

"His and my wands were twins," Harry went on. "Mr. Ollivander told me when I bought my wand that its brother had given me my scar, that both wands contained a feather from the same phoenix; phoenix feathers are a relatively rare magical core. We could injure each other with our wands, but could not fatally injure one another with them." At least, that was the explanation that had been given out after Voldemort's demise, to conceal the fact that Harry and Dumbledore had sought out and destroyed the Dark Lord's Horcruxes before confronting him directly. Voldemort, thinking himself invulnerable to death, had faced Harry after Dumbledore's death, with Harry using Dumbledore's wand. Riddle couldn't have known that, before Dumbledore died, he and Harry had dueled and Harry had disarmed the elderly wizard, taking the Elder Wand from him. It was with that wand, the so-called "unbeatable" wand, that Harry had faced Voldemort.

"So you used Dumbledore's wand to kill him," Fred said, and both George and Ron nodded. The story was well-known; to the entire Wizarding World, the story of Harry's defeat of the last great Dark Wizard of the 20th century was the beginning of a Magical Golden Age. The Death Eaters that were still extant upon Voldemort's demise were killed or captured; many of them went to prison, with the exception of a few — Lord Malfoy being one of those, due to his influence in the Wizengamot, was able to plead that he'd been Imperiused and therefore not responsible for his actions on Voldemort's behalf. That was a common enough excuse among Death Eaters, but only Malfoy had the influence (that is, the Galleons) to carry it off successfully.

"Yes," Harry said.

"Whatever happened to that wand?" Ron suddenly asked. "I mean, you still use your old wand, right? What did you do with Dumbledore's wand?"

"Don't you remember?" Fred butted in, before Harry could answer. "At the memorial for Dumbledore? Harry put the wand in the tomb with the Headmaster."

"Oh yeah…" Ron looked down. "I guess I was payin' more attention to — other stuff," he mumbled. Harry knew what he meant, even if he didn't say it. Ron had sat next to Hermione at Dumbledore's memorial service — it was during the short time they had dated, the time when she and Harry weren't seeing one another, because he was helping Dumbledore to kill Horcruxes and no one else could know about that, not even her.

"Okay, then," George said, crisply, trying to get their discussion back on track. "If this Monroe fellow isn't — _him_ — then who is he? How did he learn about Harry's recognition code phrase, if he couldn't have been at Hogwarts?"

"Obviously someone planted it in him," Fred said flatly. "Someone on a par with whoever pulled off the Prank, assuming it wasn't me and George and we Obliviated ourselves afterward."

Harry chuckled. "Still can't give up on wanting to own that, can you?"

"Well," Fred said airily, "even if we can't remember, it does have all the earmarks of being a Weasley prank." Both George and Ron nodded at that as well.

Harry chose not to debate that point. He was pretty sure Quirrell had had something to do with it, but exactly what was unclear. And, since the Defense professor was no longer around to ask, the question would likely remain forever unanswered.

"What about the Muggle journalist, then?" Ron kept going back to that question; he seemed to be more fixated on it than Fred and George were, Harry observed. It made him wonder, once again, how he'd managed to underestimate the youngest Weasley son for so long. If things had turned out even a little differently, Ron might have ended up married to Hermione Granger rather than his current wife, Luna.

"It's his move next," Harry answered, after a moment of reflection. "He was Obliviated _three times_ yesterday — I can't see how he could remember a thing about the Wizarding world by now. If someone else is manipulating him, we may see him again. But I'm not going to hold my breath."

Harry glanced at his watch. "We've been up here for over two hours, now. Your wives are probably wondering what happened to us!"

Fred laughed. "They know fish and chips and Harry Potter make for a _long_ lunch. We'll have to do this again —"

"— in another five years," George finished, grinning. "Or maybe sooner, if we can help it."

The four of them stood and left the room, tramping down the stairs leading back to WWW and their wives, preparing to explain (hopefully with as few lies as possible) what they'd been doing all this time.

**=ooo=**

"There's not much to tell," Monroe said, carefully. He wasn't sure how much to divulge to these women — he had no idea where their real loyalties might lie, especially when it came to someone like Harry Potter-Evans-Verres. They were all married to Weasleys, and he didn't know the dynamics of that family. "I met with Harry yesterday for an interview about the Singularity —"

"Which is what, exactly?" Verity interrupted. This was supposed to be a Muggle idea — why would Harry be interested in it, unless he had some stake in it?

"It's a point in future history when AI's will attain, then exceed human intelligence, resulting in runaway progress," Monroe replied. "I don't expect you to understand it —"

"Do _you_ understand it?" Angelina asked. "Wizards have had artificial intelligence for centuries."

"I don't think it's the same thing," Monroe disagreed.

"You don't? Based on what — your deep understanding of magic?" Angelina scoffed. "By your own admission you've known you're a wizard less than a day. How do you presume to know about such things?"

"I know more than you might think," Monroe argued. "When my memory came back, a lot of things I'd forgotten were suddenly back in my head once again."

"Like what?" Verity challenged.

"Like my time at Hogwarts," Monroe retorted.

There was silence for several seconds. "But, nobody remembers you from back then," Angelina said at last. "None of our husbands do — they've been trying to remember who you were since Harry first told them about your memory from the Pensieve."

"I know the reason for that," Monroe told her. "But I'm not discussing it with anyone except Harry."

"There's _loads_ we're going to discuss," Harry's voice suddenly said, sounding hard, and everyone in the shop turned to see him and the three Weasley brothers standing at the bottom of the stairs. All four of them were pointing their wands toward Monroe.

"How did you get here?" Harry demanded. "You're not supposed to remember anything about this place, unless someone screwed up — or put memories back in your head."

Monroe was eyeing the four wands pointing at him, but he didn't appear apprehensive or confused this time. "I don't know either way," he answered. "All I do know is, I woke up this morning and thoughts about the Wizarding world suddenly began flooding into my head. I started writing them down, but it became apparent after a few seconds that what I was remembering wasn't just a few isolated memories. I was remembering my entire life."

"He has a wand, too," Luna mentioned. "He showed it to us."

Harry gestured with his wand. "Take it out," he said. "Do it slowly — any sudden moves and we'll all Stun you."

Monroe gave Harry a level look. "You're treating me like some kind of Dark wizard," he said, not making any move at all.

"I suppose we shouldn't rule that out," Harry agreed. "But for now, you're just an unknown — none of us have ever heard of you or remember you as a wizard."

"I _was_ at Hogwarts," Monroe said. "You saw that yourself, in the Pensieve. And I can explain why none of you remember me."

"Then explain," Harry's wand hadn't wavered in pointing at Monroe's heart.

"The Fidelius Charm," Monroe answered.

"Huh-uh," Harry shook his head. "The Fidelius doesn't work that way. If you're suggesting that you or someone else cast a Fidelius to hide your identity, it would only keep anyone who knew you from telling anyone else your name or who you were. If you spent seven years at Hogwarts, that would mean upwards of a thousand people, including the teachers there during those years, would know who you were, even if they couldn't tell anyone about it. That would include us. The memory we saw was during my first year at Hogwarts, but I don't remember you being there _at all_. Try again."

"There's something you don't know about the Fidelius," Monroe insisted. "You can incorporate a Memory Charm into the spell; it invokes the first time you meet someone, erasing any memories they might have of you. If you add that component to the spell, you have to be the Secret-Keeper; otherwise, you could never introduce yourself to anyone, Muggle or wizard."

Harry glanced towards the Weasley brothers. Fred and George were looking very thoughtful, as if trying to determine whether Monroe's claim made any sense. "Well?" he said, as the silence grew protracted.

"I suppose it's possible," Fred said, looking rather bemused. "The Fidelius is complicated enough on its own, though, without trying to incorporate contingency spells in it, too."

"How plausible is it?" Harry demanded.

George and Fred both shook their heads. "Don't know," George answered this time. "We've never even heard of the idea until now."

"Wait a minute," Ron objected. "Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves here?" The others looked at him. Ron pointed toward Monroe. "How does he even _know_ about all this — the Fidelius, Diagon Alley, everything! I thought he was supposed to be a Muggle!"

"Up until this morning," Monroe spoke up. "I thought I _was_!"

"And so did Malfoy," Harry said, thoughtfully. "But there are ways to tell if a wizard is trying to impersonate a Muggle. You can't change your magical core even if you Polyjuice yourself into a Muggle identity — your core will be diminished, but it'll still be there, and detectable."

He looked shrewdly at Monroe. "If Malfoy didn't detect that you were really a wizard pretending to be a Muggle, then it stands to reason that you're just a Muggle pretending to be a wizard! Maybe we ought to test that."

Harry's wand was suddenly pointing at Monroe again. "Do you have any objections, Mr. Monroe?"

"I can think of one straightaway," Monroe answered. "How could I have bought a wand if I wasn't a wizard? When I waved it, the wand I bought shot sparks into the air. Bill Weasley at Ollivanders can verify that."

Everyone looked around at one another. That was a pretty good indication of being a wizard, everyone had to agree.

But the wand in Harry's hand hadn't wavered. "Good evidence," he agreed. "But only if you aren't being helped by someone behind the scenes, someone that could cause a wand to shoot sparks in the hand of a Muggle."

"Bloody hell!" Monroe said loudly. "What's it going to take to convince you, then?

Harry lowered his wand slowly to his side. "A duel, I think," he answered quietly.

"You're not serious!" Monroe said automatically, then took another look at Harry. "You _are_ serious!"

"If you attended Hogwarts around the same time we did," Harry pointed out, "you might have participated in the Defense class armies that Professor Quirrell started during my first year at Hogwarts." Harry looked expectantly at Monroe. "Well?"

After a moment, Monroe nodded. "I remember them," he said. "I was in your Chaos Legion."

Harry smiled. "It's not as if I remember, obviously," he said, with a sardonic grin. "But according to you I shouldn't, anyway."

"Wait a minute." Verity stepped forward, between the two men, her hands outstretched. "You two are _not_ having a duel in the middle of our shop!"

"Of course not," Harry smiled, hefting his wand. "We'll do it in the test range."

**=ooo=**

As Harry gestured for Monroe to follow him, however, Angelina interrupted them again. "I think I want to see this duel for myself, too."

"We'll let you know how it turns out," Fred answered. "Someone has to watch the store, you know."

"Who says _you_ can't do it?" Angelina folded her arms across her chest. "You've been off having lunch for the past two hours!"

"I don't think that's relevant," Fred said, blandly.

"Of course _you_ wouldn't," Angelina sniffed. "But some of us haven't had lunch yet!"

"You don't want us to go without lunch," Verity advised her husband. "We tend to get cranky otherwise."

"Oh, is _that_ what causes that?" George grinned. "I thought perhaps it was…" he decided not to complete his thought as he caught sight of his and Fred's wife both glaring at him.

"I don't care who watches," Harry added. "But you better make up your minds straightaway — I'm not waiting around for you lot to figure it out."

"Ron and Luna will stay," Fred said.

"Wait a minute —!" Ron looked outraged, but Fred's tone had been final.

"It'll be fun, Ronald," Luna said happily. "We don't work together that much anymore — you're always off inventing things these days."

Ron looked disgruntled, but his wife's beaming expression quickly made him smile weakly. "Sure, it'll be fun," he agreed with her. But as Fred and George moved to follow Harry and Monroe to the stairs, he put a hand on George's arm. "I want details!" he said, _sotto voce_.

**=ooo=**

The Weasley product testing range had originally been on the first floor of the shop, along with Fred and George's bedroom (which at the time had amounted to a couple of sleeping bags thrown on the floor). Since that time, a steady influx of Galleons, marriage and a desire for comfort had overridden their eagerness to "rough it" — the first floor of the shop had become three bedrooms and their "conference area," the specially-shielded room where Harry and the three youngest Weasley brothers had just had lunch.

The test range was now located under the shop, in a sixty by thirty-foot space that had been magically dug out and shaped. It was actual size so the brothers could accurately assess the effects of whatever item they were working on (using Extension Charms sometimes produced unexpected results).

The entrance was near the middle of the room, lengthwise. Harry led the way in, with Monroe looking around warily as he stepped in behind him, and Fred, George and their wives bringing up the rear.

"Pretty nice, isn't it?" Harry spread his arms, giving Monroe a calculating look. "It's certainly bigger than some of the classrooms the Chaos Legion had to practice in, that first year of our armies."

He pointed to one side of the room. "Stand over there," he said, then took up a position about thirty feet from Monroe. The four Weasleys arrayed themselves on either side of the entrance. When Harry and Monroe were both facing each other, Harry asked, "I suppose you remember how 'friendly' duels work, then?"

Monroe nodded. "No fatal or irreversible spells. No Dark curses. Either duelist can concede at any time." The Weasleys were murmuring among themselves — the rules Monroe had quoted were just what they'd been taught about formal duels.

"Right," Harry said. "I suppose you remember how to cast a Simple Shield Charm, then?"

"Yeah," Monroe replied, then said "Ouch!" as Harry's wand flicked and a spell shot out, hitting him in the chest.

"Maybe not," Harry smirked, as Monroe rubbed his chest. "Not if you can't even defend against a Simple Strike Hex."

"We haven't even started the duel yet!" Monroe snapped, angrily. "Poor form, Potter!"

"We're not in Neverland, Mr. Monroe," Harry answered, grinning. "But I won't argue with you. Are you ready to begin? I'll even let you know, I'll use _Ma-ha-su_ until you're ready for something a little stronger. And we can keep the duel verbal until you're ready to go to the next level."

"Fine," Monroe growled. "Let's begin."

The two men squared off, both holding their wands before them in the stance called for by the rules of formal dueling. Fred stepped forward, his wand held high, then swept it downward, signaling the start of the duel.

Harry's wand snapped forward. "_Ma-ha-su_!" he said, loudly, even as Monroe's wand began the motions for a Simple Shield; he shouted "_Contego_!" and the shield flickered into existence in front of his head and chest.

Harry's Simple Strike, however, had been aimed at Monroe's left leg, and he staggered as the bolt struck him. "Son of a bitch," he muttered, followed by "_Ma-ha-su_!" which Harry easily deflected with a muttered Simple Shield of his own.

"You were in my army?" Harry wondered, mockingly. "Your heart must not have been in it, Monroe, judging by your performance here so far."

"It's still coming back to me," Monroe said, through gritted teeth. "I've been living as a Muggle for a long time now!"

"So you say," Harry replied, then snapped "_Somnium_!" before Monroe could retort. This was already getting boring, even if Monroe was a wizard who'd been trapped as a Muggle.

But this time Monroe dodged to one side, letting the spell fly past him without casting a spell. At the same moment he responded with "_Luminos_!"

Harry blocked the spell without difficulty. "Strictly speaking," he noted. "That spell wouldn't do anything to me except make me glow. In a real duel it would be worthless."

"Right," Monroe said, then shouted, "_Impedimenta_!" even as Harry finished speaking. Harry said "_Protego_!" just in time for the spell to bounce off it.

"Still not impressed," Harry said, though in truth, the Impediment Jinx would have blasted right through a Simple Shield — if he'd hadn't reacted instinctively he might have been pushed back, off-balance, and there was no telling what Monroe might have done with that slight advantage. "_Stupefy_!" he said. Let's see if Monroe could take as good as he gave.

"_Protego_!" Monroe said, forming his own shield just in time to catch Harry's Stunner.

Harry swept his wand to once side, repeating the spell, and the red bolt shot out toward the wall, seemingly wasted. But the Stunner ricocheted, heading toward Monroe. It was only due to dumb luck and slight imprecision in Harry's aim that the bolt glanced off the edge of Monroe's shield, missing him by inches.

Harry's wand was sweeping back toward Monroe when the ex-Muggle's shield vanished and he muttered a spell so softly Harry couldn't hear. He dodged it, letting it speed past him, only to suddenly feel disoriented and confused. What had Monroe just done?

He realized a moment later what had happened. Monroe had sent a second spell just after the first one, aimed for where Harry had stepped when he dodged the first one. Monroe had managed to Confund him! Stupid, stupid!

"Whoa," Fred muttered, seeing Harry staggering and shaking his head. "I didn't think I'd ever see Harry faked out that easily."

Harry quickly raised a shield, protecting himself in case Monroe followed up with something like a Stunner. But the shield was angled slightly to one side, leaving his flank unprotected, and Monroe sent a Stunner toward a wall, letting it ricochet as Harry had done earlier. The Stunner clipped Harry, knocking him to the floor, and his shield evaporated. A moment later a "_Somnium_" uttered by Monroe left Harry asleep on the floor.

"Bloody hell!" George said, looking at his twin. "Harry just got beat in a duel!"

Monroe looked at Harry on the floor, then at his wand, his expression one of disbelief as well. "Huh," he said. "Didn't think that would really work." Angelina and Verity were both staring at him in shock. How had a man they'd all taken for a Muggle only hours earlier managed to beat one of the best duelists in the Wizarding world so handily?

**=ooo=**

"_Innervate_!" Fred said. After a moment Harry opened his eyes, staring up at everyone gathered around him.

"A lucky shot," he said, his voice still slightly slurred from the effects of the Confundus Charm.

"I'm sure you wouldn't have said that if your Stunner ricochet had got me," Monroe sneered.

Harry sat up slowly. "Maybe not," he admitted, as Fred followed up with _Finite_, to cancel the Confundus. "Ah, better," he said, shaking his head to clear it. He looked up at Monroe. "I suppose the only question left is, why all your memories about being a wizard suddenly came back now."

"I don't have any idea," Monroe answered, as George helped Harry to his feet. "Could all those Memory Charms you and the Ministry laid on me have done something to trigger them?"

"Possible," Harry shrugged. "But it seems like a rather elaborate scenario for anyone to set up, concealing your memories of being a wizard only to have something like one to several Obliviations cause them to return."

"A Fidelius might have been used," George theorized, "Maybe the Secret-Keeper died, or did something to end the spell."

"But if he died, it wouldn't bring back the subject's memories," Fred objected. "Ending the spell would be the only thing that would have let the memories be recalled."

"If that's the case, we have to figure out who did this," Harry said. "Either way, there's some very complex spellwork involved in this, magic that would have been too difficult for any but a very few wizards to perform."

"Who are you thinking of?" Verity asked.

"Dumbledore, for one," Harry answered. "Though I can't see why this would have mattered to him." He turned back to Monroe. "Did you ever talk to Dumbledore during your time at Hogwarts? Even once?"

"I don't remember," Monroe replied. "If I did, it was so insignificant that it probably wasn't worth remembering."

"How about Professor Quirrell?" Harry asked. The room went silent as everyone there stopped talking amongst themselves to hear the answer, especially Fred and George.

"I was in your army, Harry," Monroe answered. "You were the general — _you_ talked to him, not me. I didn't have any reason to talk to Quirrell beyond answering questions in class."

"Mmm," Harry was nodding, his expression bemused but very guarded. "Okay. Maybe we should continue this at my offices. In private."

"What?" Fred and George both said, sounding outraged. "Do you think that's a good idea?" Fred went on. "What if there's some kind of trap —"

"I don't think Monroe is setting a trap for me," Harry said, cutting him off. "He was alone with me the other day for several hours — if he'd wanted to do something then, he could have."

"But it might have something to do with his memory returning," George pointed out, and both Verity and Angelina nodded agreement.

"Better safe than sorry," Angelina pointed out, backing up her husband.

"Agreed," Harry smiled. "So I'll be safe, with the appropriate wards."

"That's not what I meant!" Angelina insisted, but Harry had already taken Monroe by the arm and was leading back up the stairs toward the shop's ground floor. She glared at Fred and George, who both grinned and shrugged sheepishly. When Harry Potter made up his mind about something, it was usually best to let him do what he wanted.

Ron was waiting at the top of the stairs — evidently he'd been trying to listen to whatever had gone on in the test range; Harry walked past him without comment, heading for the ground floor office. Ron looked inquiring at Fred and George as they came up the stairs. "What happened? I couldn't hear anything, you know — those damned sound-deadening spells!"

"Harry lost the duel," George said, in a low voice. At Ron's look of utter surprise he added, "But he doesn't seem that fussed about it. Dunno why that is — he always _hated_ losing."

"Don't I know it?" Ron muttered, almost to himself. He turned to look at Harry, but he and Monroe had already gone into the shop's office. The three Weasley brothers hurried to follow them inside, to see what Harry would do next. Verity, Angelina and Luna followed them inside, making the smallish room seem quite crowded.

Harry was taking a pinch of Floo powder from the bowl on the fireplace mantle. "We're going home," he said matter-of-factly, seeing that everyone seemed quite interested in what he was up to. "I have a few things to discuss with Mr. Monroe about his recent memory recovery."

"Maybe someone should go with you," Angelina suggested, then thrust her chin out defiantly as Harry raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, someone needs to make sure nothing happens to Mr. Monroe!"

"Harry wouldn't do anything to Mr. Monroe," Luna said, pleasantly. "He never did anything to Father in spite of all the headlines the _Quibbler _printed about him."

It might never have occurred to Luna, Angelina thought, that no one had ever attacked her father because everyone considered the man a harmless crackpot, but she knew saying so would just piss off Fred and annoy George and Verity, so she just said, "Still, it might be a good idea."

"Don't worry about it," Harry muttered. He threw the Floo powder into the fireplace, and green flames began swirling about. "We'll be fine," he said, looking at Fred and George.

Both of the twins shook their heads. "Don't worry about —" Fred began.

"— we won't follow you," George finished, while at the same time both twins silently agreed they would do that. Just in case.

Harry nodded at them, then turned to Monroe. "You know how this works?" he asked, indicating the fireplace and green flames.

"Floo travel," Monroe said matter-of-factly. "I guess I remember."

"Well, don't guess," Harry retorted, stepping forward. "Watch me and do what I do." He stepped into the green flames, turning to face the journalist and the others, then said, "Potter-Evans-Verres residence!" Harry vanished.

After a few seconds, Fred gestured toward the fire. "Well, go on, then," he told Monroe. "We're coming right after."

Monroe looked at the others a second, then nodded and stepped into the flames as well. "Potter-Evans-Verres residence!" he said, as Harry did, and vanished.

Fred stepped forward, hard on Monroe's heels, but as he stepped into the emerald flames they suddenly winked out. He stopped short, staring at the fireplace in a moment of confusion, then cursed. "Dammit! Harry must've activated his Floo Damper!"

The Floo Damper was a control that could be installed on any fireplace on the Floo Network. It curtailed travel to and from the fireplace without removing it from the Network, so homes could be made secure from unwanted visitors with a minimum of hassle. Until Fred and George invented it, shortly before Hermione became Minister of Magic, the Ministry had to be contacted and arrangements made for the removal and restoration of a fireplace to the Floo Network whenever a family planned to be away for some time.

"Why would he do that?" Verity asked.

"I don't think he wants us around while he's talking to Monroe," Fred said, grimly. He looked at George. "He must've cottoned onto what we were planning."

"It wouldn't have been that hard," George admitted. "I think we gave in a bit too easily."

"Probably," Fred agreed. He rubbed his chin, thinking hard. "I think we'd better let Ginny know something's going on. Maybe she can pay Harry a visit, pretending it's for business reasons, and see what he's up to with Monroe."

**=ooo=**

The grates flashing across Monroe's vision began to slow, until finally he caught sight of Harry standing beyond the grate in front of him, and he felt himself pushed forward and out of the fireplace.

"That wasn't too bad —" Monroe started to say, but jerked at a sudden BANG as something slammed into his chest. Ropes were winding around his chest, his arms and his legs, binding them tightly, so tightly that Monroe couldn't keep his balance and fell over on his side onto the floor. Harry reached down and removed Monroe's wand through a gap in the ropes.

"They won't be following, Monroe," Harry told him, his face close to the journalist's. "I set the damper so no one could follow. It's just you and me, now."

"What the hell's going on, Potter?" Monroe shouted angrily. "What are you _doing_?"

"I'm sure you know what I'm doing," Harry said tightly as he stood, looking over Monroe's wand briefly before putting it in a pocket. "The others can't be a part of this conversation."

"Oh? Why not?" Monroe sneered. "Because of how silly you're going to look, being fooled by a Muggle who was really a wizard?"

"No," Harry said, calmly. "Because of who you really are."

Monroe laughed harshly. "And who do you think I am, Potter?"

"You're Lord Voldemort."


	7. The Return of Lord Voldemort?

**Chapter Seven**

**The Return of Lord Voldemort?  
>Updated 127/2012**

_"Harry Potter's nearly a Dark wizard himself."_

**=ooo=**

"_Lord Voldemort_?" Monroe said, astonished by the accusation. "_Me_? I'd like to hear how you worked _that_ one out, Potter!"

"Oh, I plan to explain," Harry replied. "You're either Voldemort, disguised to look like someone else, or you're possessed by Voldemort and being forced to act on his behalf, I haven't quite worked out which it is yet."

Monroe looked down at himself, tightly bound by coils of rope around his torso and legs. "Am I going to have to lie around like this while you explain?"

"Oh, are you uncomfortable?" Harry asked, sneering. "How rude of me!" He took out his wand and waved it in Monroe's direction. Monroe rose upward, and Harry floated him over to a nearby plump chair, upholstered in a garish purple material. Harry flicked his wand, dumping Monroe unceremoniously into it. "Comfy now, Monroe?"

Monroe looked around. The room was square and not very large; there was a door opposite the fireplace. Incongruously, a third wall contained a set of elevator doors. Besides the chair he was in sat another chair, this one in red and gold cloth, and an equally garish-looking divan across the room from him. "Where are we?" he asked.

"This," Harry waved an arm to indicate the room, "is the entry way to where my wife and I live." He pointed with his wand toward the door. "It's protected with just about every possible spell I could come up with. Only myself, my wife, and a few friends can get through that door to our apartment. Obviously, you're not one of my friends, so if by some chance you do get free, I advise you not to try escaping through that door."

"Any time you're ready to back up your claim that I'm Voldemort," Monroe said, in a flat tone. "I'm all ears."

"You're not going to enjoy the result if it turns out I'm correct," Harry warned him, dropping into the chair next to his. "I can't allow Voldemort to be set loose on the Wizarding world again."

"It seems like I remember the Wizarding world was certain he was dead, once upon a time," Monroe added matter-of-factly. "And that included you — I remember reading it in the _Prophet_ years ago."

"I _was_ certain," Harry declared. "I faced him with the Elder Wand, one of the Deathly Hallows, and beat him — deflected his Killing Curse back on him. He hit the ground a dead husk."

"And yet you maintain that, somehow, _I_ am Voldemort —"

"— or possessed by him," Harry said, clarifying his position.

"Whatever," Monroe shrugged. "I'm still waiting for your proof. Isn't there some kind of spell you can use to tell whether I'm really someone else?"

Harry had taken out his wand again as Monroe was talking and was idly rolling it between his fingers. "There's a spell that the Ministry uses to determine if someone has been possessed. They developed it specifically to test whether Voldemort had somehow taken over someone else after Quirrell was killed. For a while, being tested was pretty much mandatory if you wanted to work at the Ministry. Even Hermione was tested before she began working there after she left Hogwarts. Well, let's see what happens." Harry pointed his wand at Monroe and uttered several words. After several moments of silence his expression turned from anticipation to something between relief and disappointment.

"Bad news?" Monroe asked, sardonically.

"You're not being possessed by any being the spell can detect," Harry said, looking a bit chagrinned. "But that only supports my initial hypothesis — that you somehow _are_ Voldemort!"

"Voldemort's body was destroyed when he tried to kill you back in 1981," Monroe pointed out.

"There are rituals to recover ones original form," Harry countered. "There were steps taken to counteract those rituals, but Voldemort may have anticipated them and taken steps to ensure he would have the proper materials if he needed them."

"But it seems like he didn't avail himself of those rituals," Monroe went on, "since you destroyed Quirrell along with Voldemort when you two dueled.

"Quirrell's body was taken over by Voldemort," Harry confirmed.

"So where was he in the ten years between 1981 and when Quirrell appeared to take the Defense position at Hogwarts?"

"We never learned the answer to that — Quirrell kept almost every detail of his life after attending Hogwarts secret," Harry said. "Perhaps in the same way _you_ claim to have done — with a modified Fidelius Charm, which is one reason why I think you're him."

"That's not much to go on," Monroe pointed out. "I think you're reaching."

"You _would_ say that if I was right about you," Harry riposted. "But there are more reasons."

Monroe raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "Such as?"

"Such as your single-minded determination to get an interview with me over the past several months," Harry answered immediately. "I did everything but turn you down flat to get you to give up. Yet you kept calling and showing up trying to get in to see me."

"So would _any_ good journalist," Monroe snapped, exasperated. "That's no reason to think I'm some evil Dark Lord, for Christ's sake!"

"By itself, no," Harry agreed. "But there's also —" a statue on the mantelpiece suddenly began flashing, distracting Harry. He stared at it for a moment, surprised, then muttered. "Damn."

"What?" Monroe followed Harry's gaze to the statue. "What's that mean?"

"It means trouble," Harry said, standing up. He reached into a back pocket and brought out a small bag. Reaching inside, he brought out his Invisibility Cloak.

Monroe eyed the Cloak warily. "Oh hell," he muttered. "Does that mean what I think —"

"Shut it," Harry cut him off sharply. He pointed his wand at the journalist and Monroe slumped over, unconscious. With another flick of his wand Harry raised the man in the air, then threw the Invisibility Cloak over him. A final flick dropped the man into the chair he'd been sitting in. Harry reached over and turned a lever on the fireplace to the "on" position, and green flames erupted in its hearth. Stepping out of the fireplace, Ginny Thomas nodded at Harry. "Sorry to bother you," she said, looking around the room as she stepped toward him. "I guessed that you might have gone home since you haven't been back to the office yet."

"What do you need?" Harry asked her, without preamble.

Ginny blinked, taken aback by his abruptness. "Your appointments for the afternoon —"

"Cancel them," Harry said. "Tell them I'm not feeling well."

"We can set up a phone conference," Ginny suggested, "if you don't feel well enough to be at the office."

"No," Harry shook his head. He faked a cough, then turned back to her. "I'm going to lie down as soon as you leave. Let Hermione know I'm home sick, but it's not serious enough for her to come home —"

"Are you sure?" Ginny looked concerned. "You hardly ever get sick, Harry. Maybe you should let them check you out at St. Mungo's —"

"_No_," Harry said again, more sharply. When Ginny looked startled, he tried to look regretful. "Look, I'm sorry," he told her. "I'm just feeling like I need to lie down for a while. That's all it is. If I'm still not feeling well by the time Hermione gets home, we'll go to St. Mungo's. How's that sound?"

"Okay, I guess," Ginny said, uncertainly. "I'll, uh — I'll head back to work, then." She turned back at the fireplace, but stopped and looked at him again. "Why was the Floo Damper on?"

"What?" Harry said, looking at her blankly. "Oh, I guess it was, wasn't it. That's why you signaled me."

"Well, _yeah_," Ginny said, with a bit of exasperation. "Otherwise I couldn't get through, could I then?" She gave him an odd look. "Why would you turn off the Floo Damper if you were feeling sick?"

Harry shrugged. "I dunno, I don't remember doing it. Must've been more out of it than I thought." He smiled at her. "Good thing you came by — Hermione might not have been able to come home tonight until I woke up." A thought suddenly occurred to him, and a frown passed quickly across his face.

"Yeah," Ginny said, slowly. She turned toward the fireplace again, then stopped once more. "By the way, have you heard from that Monroe fellow again?"

Harry raised an eyebrow at her. "That journalist? As a matter of fact, he showed up at the shop today."

"Really?" Ginny acted quite surprised by this. "How could he get into Diagon Alley? He's a Muggle!"

"Apparently not," Harry disagreed. "He bought a wand from Bill and walked into Weasleys' just like a real wizard. And he was able to use the wand to cast spells — I tested him to be sure."

"What were _you_ doing there?" Ginny wanted to know. "You haven't come by the shop in years."

"Just overdue for a chat with the boys," Harry shrugged. "We lost track of time; when we came down to the shop, Monroe was there talking with Verity, Angelina and Luna."

"So what happened?" Ginny asked, anxious to hear details.

"Not much," Harry demurred. "I brought him back here, then told him I didn't appreciate him trying to play me for a fool by pretending to be a Muggle, and sent him on his way. I don't think we'll be seeing _him_ again, after all the times he's been Obliviated." He gestured toward the elevator doors. "Well, I hope you don't mind taking care of things at work while I'm resting — you can use the elevator down to the offices, if you prefer."

"Oh — of course," Ginny smiled at him, then walked over to the elevator. "You know I want your job someday, by the way," she said as she walked past him.

Harry laughed. "It won't be long before I'm ready to give it to you!" They both nodded at one another again, then Ginny took out her wand and waved it at the elevator doors. After a few moments they opened, and Ginny entered. She turned and nodded a final time at Harry, then pushed a button inside the elevator.

Harry watched as the doors closed, and for several seconds after. He then turned back to the chair where Monroe's invisible, unconscious form was. He pulled off the Cloak then pointed his wand at the man. "_Innervate_," he said, and Monroe's eyes blinked as he returned to consciousness.

He looked up at Harry. "Got rid of her, then?" he asked, with a shrewd smile.

Harry stared at him a long moment. "You're not really helping your case, you know. If you were only pretending to be unconscious while listening in on my conversation, I might chalk that up as further proof that you're Voldemort."

Monroe chuckled. "I'm just having you on a bit," he said. "It wasn't hard to guess that your secretary might be looking for you in the middle of a workday afternoon. But I didn't know for sure until you just confirmed it."

"I haven't confirmed anything," Harry retorted. "You have no idea who was just here, do you?" Harry was looking directly into Monroe's eyes as he asked this.

Monroe shrugged. "We can go with that for now," he agreed. "Especially since, if I guessed correctly who was just here, you'll use it against me."

Harry's wand flicked, and the ropes fell away from Monroe's body, dissolving to nothingness as they fell. "It looks like you're going to see more of my home than I anticipated at first," Harry said. "I don't want to remain here in case anyone else decides to come calling. I can't leave the Floo Damper closed now or they'll be suspicious of that."

Monroe stood slowly. "If you don't want me to see this place, I can just leave," he suggested.

Harry shook his head. "Not a chance. Besides, I thought you'd want to stay anyway, to disprove whether you're Voldemort."

"The onus is on you to do that," Monroe pointed out. "You're the one making that claim — you're the one who has to back it up."

"Then I insist you remain," Harry replied. "So I can do so."

"Fine by me," Monroe said. "Because you're wrong."

"We'll see," Harry muttered, then went over to the door leading out of the room. His wand made several complicated motions toward it, then he turned and made another series of motions at Monroe. Finally his wand stopped moving, and Harry opened the door.

"You're protected from the defense wards now," he told Monroe. "But stick close to me — if you get too far away, you'll be immobilized."

"Don't trust me, eh?" Monroe grinned.

"Nope," Harry said, and gestured for the journalist to follow him.

**=ooo=**

The corridor leading away from the entry opened into a larger room, one that seemed to be a living area, though it looked more like a library to Monroe — the walls were covered in shelves filled with what looked like thousands upon thousands of books. There were a couple of comfortable-looking loungers with a small table between them, with books stacked haphazardly on it. Monroe didn't see a television, but there was a piece of furniture that looked like a television stand positioned in front of the two lounge chairs.

Harry led Monroe through this room toward one of the shelf-covered walls. He gestured with his wand as they came close and a section of shelves opened inward, exposing another corridor. "You sure love your secret passapges, don't you?" Monroe said with a trace of irony in his voice.

"Hogwarts spoiled me," Harry replied. "Follow me."

The corridor, lit by a ceiling that glowed with magical light as they entered, sloped upward as Harry and Monroe walked along it, ending at a formidable looking door that took Harry several passes with his wand to open.

They stepped into a strange, circular room, one with a dozen doors along the walls. As soon as Harry closed the door behind them the room began to spin, faster and faster until the doors were just blurs. Monroe watched this activity with some apprehension — what was Potter up to with all this, and when was he going to settle down and start trying to prove his claim?

The spinning finally slowed and came to a halt. At once Harry called out, "Interview Room," and one of the doors flashed red momentarily. Harry walked over to that door and opened it, gesturing for Monroe to enter.

The room was small and nearly bare, with only two wooden armchairs inside facing one another. The walls, floor and ceiling were flat white; even though there were no visible lights, the room seemed to have its own illumination, just as the corridor did.

"Interview room?" Monroe was looking around, shaking his head. "This looks more like that interrogation room at the Ministry," he scoffed. "Am I going to end up stuck to one of these chairs, like I did there?"

"We won't need to resort to that, I hope," Harry replied. He gestured to one of the chairs. "Have a seat."

Monroe deliberately sat down in the other chair. "Suit yourself," Harry said, and took the first chair.

"So, what's your evidence?" Monroe asked, as Harry slid his wand into a pocket.

Harry sat back, regarding Monroe for some time before he answered. "Do you know how much information I was able to dig up on you over the past day?" he asked.

"No idea," Monroe said. "But it shouldn't be difficult for someone with your resources to hack into both government and private databases and find information on me."

"It wasn't," Harry agreed. "But your background information turns out to be rather dodgy."

"How's that?" Monroe challenged.

"Your history in Britain only goes back to 2010, when you were sent here from America by the publishers of _Singularity Today_ to help research background material for a series being written at the time," Harry said. "You were hired on by the magazine afterwards, somehow skirting the residency requirements of foreign nationals, and turned out a few pieces for the mag every year until late 2015, when you began pestering me for an interview."

"Sounds pretty sinister," Monroe cracked, his cheek resting on one arm propped on his armchair. "I guess that proves I _am_ Voldemort, then?"

"There's more," Harry went on. "It's back in America that your history really gets dodgy. You accepted a job at Paragon Publications, in 2010, but before that, information about James Monroe becomes rather tangled. The only information I have on James Monroe that gets close to matching you has you born on July 31, 1980, in Kansas City, Missouri, attending Kansas State University between 1998 and 2004, graduating with dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Software Engineering and Computer Science from the College of Engineering. That doesn't seem like a path that would lead to being a journalist, I have to say."

"Stranger things have happened," Monroe commented, still leaning on his hand. "Is that what you're offering as 'proof' I'm really Voldemort?"

"No," Harry replied. "But that _same_ James Monroe is still in America right now, working for a company in Kansas City, the same company he's been working for since 2005. And you and he look identical to one other."

"So, that just makes him my doppleganger," Monroe shrugged. "Obviously, I can't be him if he's still in America. And there's no reason to think I stole his identity."

"I'd agree with that," Harry said, "if you were still just a Muggle. But wizards have a lot more options in the identity department than Muggles do, and now that you've been revealed as a wizard, I have to consider those options as well."

"It's going to be quite a leap from me finding out this morning that I'm a wizard, to proving that I'm Voldemort and that I stole this identity from a Muggle six years ago and have lived as Muggle all that time, only to walk into the lions' den at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and risk blowing everything," Monroe argued.

"Quirrell did lots of things that, in hindsight, were indications of his affiliation with Voldemort," Harry pointed out. "I always felt an aura of doom about him, such that I could never get closer than a few feet from him before it became nearly overwhelming."

"And yet you and I have spent hours within a few feet of one another," Monroe said, a triumphant gleam in his eye. "Does that not disprove your claim?"

"It doesn't help it much," Harry admitted. "But I have to assume Quirrell (and therefore Voldemort) felt it as well, and that he would have taken steps to negate that feeling, if at all possible, if he's back. That way, I wouldn't feel threatened."

"It sounds like you're coming up with _ad hoc_ reasons to explain away the disparities between me and Voldemort," Monroe said, icily. "Isn't that something a rationalist is supposed to avoid?"

"Not really, in this case," Harry disagreed. "During the interview, and afterwards, neither I nor Malfoy detected that you were a wizard being passed off as a Muggle. There was a trace of magic about you, but I knew Ginny had Obliviated you — that's what I thought I was detecting. And Malfoy, at the Ministry, ignored it because he knew (or guessed) that I'd Obliviated you as well. You might have maneuvered Ginny into doing that to disguise the fact that you were disguised."

"That sounds more like rationalization than rationality," Monroe sneered.

"Well, I do have a final test," Harry added. "So it's still a matter of rationality, assuming you're willing to take the test."

Curiously, Monroe looked interested rather than apprehensive, an affect that vaguely bothered Harry. Could Voldemort have somehow foreseen what he intended to use on this man, and taken steps to counter it? That _was_ beginning to sound like rationalization, Harry realized. He would have to watch that — such muddy thinking could also interfere with the deeper plans he had, plans that were themselves nearing culmination.

"Whatever this test is," Monroe said. "I'll do my best to pass it."

"You won't have to do anything, the test will work with or without your consent. I'll be back in a moment." Harry opened the door and left the room, leaving Monroe alone and staring after him.

**=ooo=**

The fireplace swirled with emerald flames, and Ginny stepped out of them and into the office where Fred, George and Ron anxiously awaited her return. As she shook soot from her red hair, Fred asked, "Was he there?"

Ginny nodded. "He had to turn the Floo Damper back on so I could get through. He said he wasn't feeling well and was there to have a lie down. Said he didn't know how the Damper got turned off."

"But what about Monroe?" George pressed. "Was _he_ there?"

"Harry said he'd brought him there, then let him go," Ginny answered. "He wasn't in the room as far as I could tell, but Harry might have had time to put him somewhere else. He's got three whole floors in that building, you know."

"We could check with the Ministry," Ron suggested. "See if they were still watching for Monroe to walk out of that building."

"Dunno if that'll matter now," Fred muttered. "At least as far as Harry and the Ministry are concerned — they were worried he was telling secrets to a Muggle. If Monroe is really a wizard, especially an American one, they might want to have words with _him_, though. He should have at least notified the local magical government when he took up residency here."

"Unless someone Obliviated him and brought him over here without his knowledge," George hypothesized. "But it's hard to imagine anyone but a Dark wizard doing that to another wizard. Maybe some American Dark wizard wanted Monroe out of the country, and dumped him here with false memories of himself as a Muggle."

"Could that be what Harry is trying to figure out?" Ginny asked. "You know he can't resist a mystery. Plus, if a Dark wizard's involved he can get really intense…"

Fred and George both nodded, distracted. Harry was predictable that way — the disaster with Quirrell at the end of his first year had made him quite wary of such things. So far as they knew the Quirrell-Voldemort fusion had been dealt with in the final days of Harry's first year at Hogwarts, with Quirrell dead and Voldemort's ghost banished from existence. The next six years were pretty much normal until Harry's final year, when he became brooding and secretive, and his relationship with Hermione soured. Ron had taken up with her then, a dream come true for him, until the following fall when Hermione began attending a Muggle college instead of going to work at the Ministry, as Ron had. Ron had appeared to shrug their breakup off as if it were no big deal, just the way things turned out, but contrary to what Luna believed, Ron _did_ earn the five N.E.W.T.S. needed to join the Auror Training program, largely in part with Hermione's help during his final year. After their breakup, however, Ron dropped out of Auror Training and went to work with his father in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, part of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, where he was when he met Luna Lovegood once again and began seeing her regularly.

"Bollocks," Ron said suddenly, frowning. "Harry Potter's nearly a Dark wizard himself. Dumbledore barely kept him out of it — that's why he spent so much time with Harry his last year at school!"

"You're wrong about Harry," Ginny said fiercely, getting in Ron's face to argue with him. "The work he's been doing has been to _help_ people, including Muggles, live better lives! You don't know what you're talking about, Ron!"

"Yeah, you _would_ defend him, wouldn't you?" Ron snapped at her. "You're still in love with him!" He pursed his lips and made an exaggerated kissing sound, mocking her.

Ginny's face turned almost as red as her hair. "And you're still in love with —"

"Cut it out!" George said loudly, cutting off her retort. "Stick to the problem at hand, you two!" Ginny and Ron both glowered at each other, but they backed away from each other with no further comment, pointedly returning their attention to Fred and George.

"What d'you want to do, then?" Ginny asked, bitingly. "Go back to Harry and make him tell us what's going on? Or maybe you want to get Malfoy involved again?"

"Come on, sis." Fred looked offended at her final suggestion. "Malfoy's been gunning for Harry practically since his daddy bought the Head Aurorship for ickle Draco. What he doesn't know can only be in Harry's best interest."

"Besides," George added, "if we're going to anyone other than Harry, it's going to be someone with _real_ leverage on him—" both Fred and George grinned evilly, and said in one voice "— his wife."

**=ooo=**

Harry was gone for several minutes, long enough that Monroe had started to worry that he'd be left alone for hours. And without his wand, which was a serious no-no in the Wizarding community — you didn't take a wizard's wand from him without good reason. Only an agent of the Ministry of Magic had the right to confiscate a wizard's wand, and Harry Potter-Evans-Verres was _not_ an agent of the Ministry, so far as Monroe knew.

He also had the feeling that Potter was watching him, somehow, from somewhere outside this room, waiting to see what he would do if left alone long enough. It made Monroe want to stand up and pace around the room, though he'd resisted doing that so far; there was no telling what Potter would read into _anything_ he did.

The door to the room opened and Harry stepped in carrying a glassful of water. "That took longer than I expected," Harry said, apologetically. "I thought I'd see if you wanted some water, since we're out of Pepsi."

"Water's fine," Monroe said, extending his hand toward it, but Harry lifted the glass above his head and poured it over him. Monroe jerked as the cold liquid spilled over him, then glared up at Harry.

"What the _hell_?" he shouted. "What'd you do _that_ for?"

"Just a little test," Harry said, calmly. His wand was out and pointed at Monroe. The glass vanished from his hand and he stepped back, watching Monroe closely. The journalist was now wet and angry, but nothing else had changed about him.

"That 'water' was from Gringotts," he said. "It's known as the Thief's Downfall — goblins use it when they suspect someone of being deceptive. It washes away all enchantments and magical concealment. If you had been Voldemort, it would have revealed you in your true form."

"And what if I'd been possessed, as you also suspected?" Monroe snapped, shaking water out of his hair.

"The Thief's Downfall would have canceled the possession spell, separating you and Voldemort," Harry answered.

"What if he didn't need a spell?" Monroe wondered. His anger had already dissipated. Using the goblin anti-deception water had been brilliant on Potter's part. "Couldn't his soul just slip into me and take me over somehow?"

Harry looked annoyed at the question. "There's no evidence that souls even exist," he said shortly.

"Then how do you explain Horcruxes?" Monroe asked, his eyes locked on Harry's.

There was silence in the room for quite a while.

"How do you know about Horcruxes?" Harry finally asked.

"It's part of the curriculum at the Salem Institute," Monroe said.

"But you said you attended Hogwarts," Harry objected. "Your memory confirms you were _here_!"

"But I never said I attended all seven years here," Monroe answered. "I went back to America at the beginning of my third year, to attend school there. By the end of my second year, I realized that the Ministry had a stranglehold on the magic being taught at Hogwarts, especially defense magic. The Defense professor they provided for our second year confirmed _that_. My parents and I researched schools that had a more progressive outlook on wizard education, and we landed on the Institute.

"The advanced Magical Defense classes went into detail about techniques used by Dark wizards to render themselves invulnerable from harm, or extremely durable," Monroe continued. "Wizards can create a phylactery, what you'd call a Horcrux, to store their life force, or soul. Part of that advanced training includes a magical agreement with the head of the school not to divulge information about such magic to wizards who haven't had such training. Most of the schools in Europe, including Hogwarts, haven't taught anything about Horcruxes in many decades, even the 'iffy' schools like Durmstrang."

"If that part's true," Harry argued. "You shouldn't have been able to say anything about Horcruxes in front of me."

"Except it's pretty obvious you already know about Horcruxes," Monroe told him. "Since you believed I was Voldemort, who was supposedly destroyed in 1992 along with Quirinus Quirrell."

But Harry had turned away, deep in thought. When he turned back to Monroe, he had a calculating expression. "Did the Salem Institute teach you anything about an ancient spell called the Interdict of Merlin?"

"A few things," Monroe answered. "It's a spell that Merlin created near the end of his life, possibly as a response to what he saw as an unchecked proliferation of powerful magic brought about by schools like Hogwarts. He was afraid that wizards would become ascendant over Muggles, whom he thought had more potential than their magical counterparts.

"The Interdict affected Britain, Europe and most of Asia Minor — essentially the extent of the world as Merlin knew it at that time. It seems to be slowly expanding as well; most of the Americas are covered by it now, and most of Asia as well. There are very few places left on Earth it hasn't reached yet."

"Examples?" Harry prompted.

"Antarctica, most likely," Monroe suggested. "The Interdict seems to spread in response to magical activity, and I doubt many wizards have traveled there. But that may be moot now — there are almost no ancient books left that contain spells affected by the Interdict."

"But do you think those books, if some could be found, could be read and understood if the wizard went to Antarctica?" Harry pressed.

"Probably, for a while," Monroe agreed. "But using magic in Antarctica will cause the Interdict to spread there as well, and no one has tried to figure out how quickly the Interdict renders old spell books unreadable."

Monroe was giving Harry an odd look. "I'd have thought that you would have known all this already, Potter."

"I did," Harry nodded. "I just wanted to check your knowledge against mine. Why do you think we haven't been able to duplicate some of those ancient spells. After all, just because we can't glean the information from old books doesn't mean we can't re-invent a spell that was used long ago."

"It may not be that simple," Monroe disagreed. "One of my teachers suggested that the Interdict worked like a Fidelius Charm, but if a wizard hadn't passed on his powerful spells to an apprentice before he died, his death would cause the knowledge of that spell to be lost forever. Once the last wizard died before passing on any powerful spells he or she knew, those spells can no longer be known as long as the Interdict is in effect."  
>Harry was nodding. "That's what I think as well — all my research points to that conclusion."<p>

"What did your teachers say about it?"

"The Interdict of Merlin is one of the unspoken subjects at Hogwarts, along with Horcruxes and a few other bits of Dark magic," Harry said. "While the Interdict isn't itself Dark, nobody wants to point to Merlin as the reason why we're losing knowledge about spells — he's almost a sacred figure here in Britain."

"I guess I understand that," Monroe nodded. "But he's not quite _that_ revered at the Salem Institute."

Monroe was still giving Harry an odd look. "An hour ago you were almost ready to kill me," he said, "if you'd been convinced I was Voldemort. Now it seems like you've done a complete turnabout."

Harry had a wry look on his face. "I wasn't really that convinced you were Voldemort," he said. "There was a possibility, but only a bare one. But I was interested in how you managed to make everyone at Hogwarts forget you, and why no one has ever mentioned you in the twenty-five years since I began going to school there. That modified Fidelius Charm is very complicated magic. Did your parents help you with that?"

"No," Monroe said. "I designed it myself, in my sixth year at the Institute—mostly as a challenge from a teacher in my Advanced Spell Design class. She told our class that certain spells, like certain potion ingredients, were not miscible."

"She's not exactly wrong, there," Harry said, dryly.

"True, but she didn't think the Fidelius and the Memory Charms could be put together to any good effect. She was hard to convince, too — when I turned in my paper showing how to do so, she only gave me a B." Monroe shrugged. "So I cast the spell on myself. It made for an interesting final year, since everyone in school could talk to me but nobody, not even the teachers, talk or write anything about me."

Monroe chuckled, a bit ruefully. "I became a non-entity at the Institute. In a way, my teacher was right, since that wasn't a very positive experience. My transcript at the Institute is incomplete, because no one could add to it after I cast the spell. The teachers couldn't even grade my homework assignments!"

"But I was able to discuss my interview with you with the Weasleys," Harry said. "Did you cancel the spell? But — if that was true," he realized even as he asked the question, "I would have remembered you at Hogwarts!"

"I modified the spell," Monroe said. "I made the Fidelius effective from 2010 back to my birth, so that anyone who'd met me after I came to England would know me only as a journalist from America."

"Pretty complicated magic," Harry said. It was almost a compliment, coming from him.

"So now what?" Monroe wanted to know. "Are you done with me yet? Do I get to go free?"

"If you want," Harry said. He took out his wand and pointed it at the door; a loud _clack_ sounded and the door swung open a few inches. He took Monroe's wand out of his pocket and handed it to him. "Sorry for taking this," he said. "I didn't want you leaving before we had a chance to talk. Now, unless you're anxious to go back to your Muggle job of writing for _Singularity Today_, there's something you can help me with, if you're interested."

Monroe stood and walked over to the door, but turned and looked at Harry again. "I can't go back to that job," he said. "You know that as well as I do. If I'm a wizard, I should try to get integrated back into wizarding society."

"I agree," Harry nodded. "That's why I'm asking for your help."

"What do you want help with?" Monroe asked.

"I want you to help me bring about the Magical Singularity."


	8. The Magical Singularity

**Chapter Eight  
><strong>**The Magical Singularity**

Updated 2/10/2012

"_Diagon Alley is full of ears…__"_

"The _Magical_ Singularity?" Monroe repeated. Comprehension of Harry's method was beginning to dawn on him. "Then all this talk about the Technological Singularity —"

"Is just a cover," Harry finished. "I've been using the Technological Singularity as a parallel model for the Magical Singularity. It only makes sense that's what wizards should be trying to achieve — not just the immortality of individuals, or even of all wizards, but the ability of _everyone_ to use magic, Muggles and wizards alike!"

Monroe's brow was furrowed in concentration as he tried to wrap his mind around the idea. "I — I suppose I understand," he said at last. "But your company looks like it's really working toward the Singularity, not just giving it lip service."

"It _is_," Harry agreed. "If a technological Singularity can come about before I can create the magical Singularity, it probably should. The better advancement always wins, so if technology can beat magic to a Singularity, I'll go with technology.

"But I think magic is ultimately more powerful than Muggle technology, and that's why I've been pursuing a parallel path with it. Wizards have managed to keep their existence secret from most of humanity for centuries now — if the Magical Singularity comes about it could be possible that everyone will be able to use magic. That's why I'd like you to —"

"Before we get into what you want from me —" Monroe interrupted, then looked around the room "—can we get out of here and discuss things somewhere a bit more comfortable? I still feel like you're about to interrogate me."

A few minutes later Harry and Monroe were both seated in plush recliners in a room Harry had called the "Den Room" in the spinning circular room. Each of them now held a drink — Harry had a butterbeer and Monroe a Pepsi — Harry _did_ have a supply of Pepsi, it turned out.

"I get what the idea behind the tech Singularity it," Monroe was saying as he sipped at his drink. "But I'm not sure what you think a magical Singularity is going to entail. Magical knowledge increasing faster than wizards can comprehend?"

"Something along those lines, but it's going to require increased intelligence to handle that," Harry replied. "I've been looking for ways to increase human intelligence magically, like Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem was supposed to increase the wearer's wisdom. So far I haven't come up with anything, probably due to the Interdict of Merlin."

"Have you tried travelling to locations where the Interdict isn't powerful enough to interfere with comprehension when reading ancient books?" Monroe asked.

"Yes, but its effects immediately start to encroach upon an unaffected area whenever any magic is used," Harry complained. "There are so few places left that I'm afraid to use them before I understand how to keep the Interdict from reaching them."

"Have you tried travelling to the location using Muggle means, and avoided using any kind of magic while you're there?" Monroe suggested.

"Yes," Harry said, unhappily. "But the effect still begins to creep in almost as soon as I arrive."

"Hmm," Monroe mused silently for some time. Then, "Who else knows you're working toward a Magical Singularity?"

"The Weasleys have been collecting ancient magic books for me for years, but as far as I know they think it's a hobby, that I just like to collect books, even useless ones."

"Does your wife know?"

"No," Harry said. "But she may suspect I'm doing more than I'm telling her, I've gone on trips without telling her why often enough now. But for all I know she might suspect me of having an affair."

"_Are_ you?" Monroe asked, bluntly. "She may suspect you for other reasons."

Harry chuckled. "I'm not," he replied. "But so far she's made no insinuations that I've taken as suspicion on her part."

"Not even of Ginny Thomas?" Monroe suggested.

Harry was silent for several seconds, frowning. "Why would you say that?" he asked at last. "Ginny's married, too."

Monroe shrugged. "I've noticed the way she looks at you," he said. "It seems like more than a profession interest in you or your work."

"I think you're way off-base," Harry disagreed. "But either way, she doesn't know about my research on magic; neither does her husband Dean. He knows I'm doing magical research, but he thinks it's just to keep my wizarding skills sharp."

"And the Ministry? If the head Auror has a hard-on for you he might have surveillance in place even you don't know about."

"Malfoy?" Harry almost looked amused at that. "Draco's not a real threat to me. He's biding his time until his father dies or makes him Lord of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Malfoy, and I don't think Lucius is anxious to do that, not while his son is in such a useful position in the Ministry."

Monroe was silent for a time. Then, "Well, I'll grant that you know him better than I do. And what you tell your wife is your own business. As well as what you tell yourself about your relationship with Ginny Thomas.

"But I am surprised you haven't brought the Weasleys into this project of yours. As I recall, they were a couple of wisenheimers at school, but they were pretty brilliant with their magic, especially the magical novelties they cobbled up in the first few years I was at Hogwarts."

"They are good," Harry agreed. "The reason I haven't gone to them is mostly because of their younger brother, Ron. Ron and I met the day I went to Hogwarts, on Platform 9¾, and it wasn't a good experience. I spoke to Draco Malfoy, who'd I'd met a few days earlier in Diagon Alley, and Ron assumed if I was talking to him I must be a bad guy."

"That seems a bit previous of him," Monroe noted.

"And I insulted Quidditch," Harry added, a bit wryly. "Told him that the Snitch was a stupid addition that made most of the game moot. I think that was the final straw with Ron." Monroe chuckled, then suddenly did a double-take at Harry.

"So all that business of mucking about with the rules of Quidditch during our second year — that was _your_ doing?" he asked, eyes narrowed.

"I'm afraid so," Harry admitted.

"You were a boy of many talents, even then," Monroe said, not admiringly. "How did you ever find time to study?"

Harry smiled thinly. "Oh, I was able to make time."

Monroe looked at him for several seconds. "Oh, I get it. You had one of those Time Turner things, didn't you?"

"How'd you hear about those?" Harry asked, a bit more sharply he needed to. "Everyone was supposed to think they were — er, Spimster wickets, as I recall."

"Yeah," Monroe agreed dryly, "A device that treated the rare but non-contagious magical condition called Spontaneous Duplication. But just about everyone in Ravenclaw knew what they really were. We were all envious of the kids that got them. I wanted one, too, but McGonagall never called me into her office to give me one."

"Who knows?" Harry commented. "You might've gotten one your third year, when your class schedule increased."

"Maybe," Monroe shrugged. "At the Salem Institute the teachers used the Time Turners, not the students, under the assumption that adult wizards were better experienced in the intricacies of time travel and its hazards."

"I wonder," Harry said idly, almost to himself. "If the Time Turners those Salem wizards used had protective shells on them, to prevent anyone from accidentally breaking them…"

"I never saw one," Monroe answered, though Harry hadn't really asked the question of him. "So I can't tell you." He drained the last of his glass of soda.

"Do you have any of these books you've been talking about?" he asked abruptly. "It might be useful to look at them, if you do."

Harry smiled. "Oh, I have a few," he said, standing. "Follow me." He led them back to the circular room, where after it stopped spinning Harry said, "Tome Room," and a door flashed red. They entered that door, following a short corridor that led to a small room filled with shelves of books.

But what books they were! There were no neatly ordered shelves lined with row upon row of classroom texts, but books of all shapes and sizes: large wood-and-leather bound tomes, grimoires and manuals, small diaries, even loose parchments and scrolls.

Monroe was looking around the room in wonderment. "I had no idea so many of these old books existed. How many are there in here?"

"Roughly a thousand books," Harry answered. "Maybe half that many loose scrolls and sheets of parchment." He took down a coffee table-sized book and opened it on a small table, then stepped aside so Monroe could examine it.

Monroe examined each page carefully. "Some of these spells are readable," he mused as he leafed through the tome. "Some of them are written in English, even if the wording is archaic. I can even read some of the ones written in runes. But yes, some of the words in here are nothing but gibberish to me." He looked up at Harry. "Do we know how powerful or complex the spell has to be before the Interdict makes it unreadable?"

Harry waved an arm around the room, gesturing at the books in general. "I've looked through all of these books, and some of them seem to have spells ordered by complexity or overall power, but it's hard to say what spells we can learn from books today are the most powerful ones the Interdict allows us to read. The Patronus, Fidelius, and Protean Charms are all complicated spellwork, but all of them are available from the Standard Book of Spells, except for the Fidelius, which is specialized magic, but even it can be found in certain spellbooks in clear language."

Monroe turned to a page with one of the affected spells on it. The words were written in runes, which he and Harry could both read, but the words made no sense. "Which of these books have you tried to take outside the Interdict's effects?" Monroe asked.

Harry took out his wand and pointed to a book on the opposite side of the room. It floated off its shelf and over to him. Monroe closed the book he was looking at and they opened Harry's. It, too, was full of both clear and Interdict-obscured spells. Harry flipped to a page about halfway through the book.

"Here's a spell I'd planned to learn once outside the Interdict," he said. They both stared at the text. Like the first book, it was written in runes, but there was transliterated text written in the Roman alphabet next to the runes.

**Glycpto Gragnor Fustenis**

**Msesno gyan do vodop kakan dozir mechaz veeropo badduga voco neobo zsow —  
><strong>**Deulo bapgo moernoe ves tuo bysizi os vettoero —  
><strong>**Basmo zeoloe fzasula theogen gana posento vudu nokwurtz yegrhol —  
><strong>**Zudunu algolo fresen bodogo mazunla —  
>Festuni lecto alconro poesteo vacuaeliso meonoroso vuptun —<br>Bagdos verun fallo beguna qaunowe yuoesolo…**

"This was one spell I didn't have to translate from the runes," Harry said. "I thought it would save time, since I didn't know how much time I'd have before the Interdict would take effect where I was, but I didn't get more than the first line translated." He pulled out a piece of parchment that was folded and placed at the back of the book, and showed it to Monroe.

Glycpto Gragnor Fustenis  
>Mind Extension Potion<p>

"_That's_ interesting," Monroe commented, sounding excited. "But you could only translate one line?"

"Then the Interdict kicked in again," Harry said, in a chagrinned tone. "I was very excited to find something like this — it was a major disappointment not to be able to translate more than a bit of it. That's why we need to find a place the Interdict won't immediately render useless to us."

"Have you tried to dispel the Interdict in an area?" Monroe asked.

"It was the first thing I tried," Harry replied. "But there's no dispel charm powerful enough to block it, even temporarily." He shook his head in frustration. "The Interdict has been the biggest impediment I've had in the past decade to bringing about the Magical Singularity."

On one of the shelves, a small statue of Rowena Ravenclaw suddenly flashed red and a small chime sounded. "Hermione's home early," Harry said. "Well, that was unexpected. She must be worried about me," he smiled.

Harry looked at Monroe. "You might as well meet her," he said. "There's no way I could sneak you out of here, anyway."

Monroe gave him a look. "Are we going to tell her anything about —"

"Not a word," Harry warned. "As far as you're concerned, I invited you here, away from the Weasleys, so I could properly apologize for the treatment you received at the Ministry after our interview the other day."

"You never did really apologize for that, by the way," Monroe pointed out.

"I didn't?" Harry smiled again, more evilly this time. "Well, I probably would have gotten around to that, eventually…"

=ooo=

Draco Malfoy was not happy. Not happy at all. But what else was new these days?

The Head Auror had just received information that the Muggle he'd questioned for several hours over a suspicious interview with Harry Potter had turned up in Diagon Alley, _bought a wand_, and went to the Weasleys' joke shop, where Harry Potter just _happened_ to be having lunch with Fred, George and Ron Weasley.

James Monroe, the Muggle in question, had shown no indication of being a wizard when in Malfoy's custody. He'd been Obliviated and released. But _now_, according to Malfoy's source, Potter had left the Weasley shop with Monroe, and neither of them had been seen since.

It was beginning to look like Potter was trying to play him for a fool, and Malfoy had already been played for a fool, long before he'd ever met Harry Potter. He wasn't going to let Potter get away with it again.

The question was, how was he going to play this? There was no point in going to the Minister — even if she didn't know what was going on with Potter and Monroe, she probably wouldn't give him any information unless she believed Potter was into something even she couldn't protect him from. Potter had the resources these days to keep most of his shady business practices off both the Muggle and wizarding radars.

And Monroe? As a Muggle he had merely been a pawn in the ongoing game he and Harry Potter played with one another these days, the "Catch-Me-If-You-Can" game that Potter dabbled in, such as the gray market in Ministry-sanctioned magic documents — books, scrolls, or parchments with text that the Interdict of Merlin had rendered unreadable.

Not that more than one couldn't play that game — Malfoy had a hundred or so books and scrolls himself, carefully secreted away in Malfoy Manor where even the best Aurors in his department couldn't detect them. He'd poured over the old books and scrolls himself, wondering how he would crack the Interdict if _he_ were Harry Potter. There were a group of Unspeakables working on the problem as well, but neutralizing the Interdict had been an ongoing Ministry project for decades now, if not centuries, and no one was any closer to dispelling the Interdict or stopping its spread across the world; whenever wizards found a location where the Interdict was weak, it would invariably strengthen when someone tried to read one of the ancient texts affected by Merlin's spell.

But back to the matter at hand — Potter and Monroe, and whatever was going on between them. Potter couldn't be touched unless they caught him in a violation of Wizarding law, and it would have to be a very obvious violation.

Monroe, however, was a different matter entirely. If he'd actually bought a wand from Ollivanders, then he was an unregistered foreign wizard living in Britain under suspicious circumstances; they could pick him up the next time he appeared in public. If Potter knew anything about Monroe being a wizard (and it seemed certain he did; his source had informed Malfoy that Potter had tested Monroe's wizarding abilities) then Malfoy could bring him in to give corroborating evidence about Monroe, and there was nothing Granger could do to help him without it appearing like she was hindering his investigation. If she did _that_, Draco could likely persuade his father to fund a movement to have Granger voted out as Minister of Magic.

Draco managed a smile at that. Things weren't really as bad as he initially thought! He took two pieces of parchment out of his desk and wrote on them for several moments, then pressed a button on the lower edge of his desk, a button that summoned only two particular Aurors to his office. A few moments later his door opened and Crabbe and Goyle stepped in.

"You remember that Muggle we had in here the other day," Malfoy said, more as a statement than a question, and both men nodded shortly.

"Well, it turns out he's _not_ a Muggle — he's a wizard, he bought a wand in Diagon Alley and was able to use it. I assume you two didn't perform any spells to verify he was a Muggle, did you?"

Crabbe and Goyle looked at one another in surprise. "Mr. Malfoy," Goyle said, hesitantly. "We had no reason to think he was anything other than what you told us — a Muggle!"

"If we thought you'd suspected anything like that we'd have tested him!" Crabbe protested.

"Enough," Malfoy said, holding up a hand for silence. "I had no reason to think he was anything but a Muggle, either. It looked like Potter was passing him hints about the Wizarding world; I wanted to catch him on Secrecy violations.

"But if Monroe is really a wizard, then he's in Britain illegally, and we can bring him in for questioning. He and Potter must have some kind of scheme cooked up, and I want to find out what it is." He handed the paper he had just written on to Crabbe. "Here's a warrant to search the premises at 93 Diagon Alley for any and all information about a wizard known as James Monroe. I want you to take an investigative team and make sure they search _very_ carefully. You get me?"

Both Crabbe and Goyle smirked. "Sure, Mr. Malfoy," Crabbe nodded knowingly. "We'll make sure they turn the entire place over real good."

"Good," Malfoy said. "I want them closed down the rest of the day," he said. "I want to show the Weasleys what they're in for if they start getting too cozy with Harry Potter again."

"And if you see Monroe," he went on, handing the second parchment to Crabbe, "this is a warrant for his arrest, on the charge of failing to register with the Ministry. If you find Potter with him, arrest him, too — I'll figure out the appropriate charges, but you can tell him aiding and abetting if he asks."

Both men nodded and lumbered out of the room, leaving Draco smiling with satisfaction. At the very least, this would cause a major embarrassment for the Minister — at best, the Wizengamot (led by his father) would call for her to step down, and demand the election of a new Minister. If Draco could buy or steal enough votes to win that, it should convince his father that he was at last worthy to hold the title of Lord of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Malfoy.

=ooo=

"Hello, love," Harry said, giving his wife a peck on the cheek as she entered their apartment's living room. "How was your day?"

"Busy," Hermione said, shortly, then put her hand on Harry's forehead. "Are you alright? I heard you were not well."

"The rumors of my illness were greatly exaggerated," Harry quipped, as Hermione felt his cheek as well. "I was just having some indigestion after lunch with Fred, George and Ron; it's been a while since I've had fish and chips — I guess they didn't agree with me."

"Probably from that grease pit across from the Weasleys," Hermione shook her head disapprovingly. "They need another warning about their food quality, it seems." She took a small notebook out of her robe. "I'll have someone—"

"It's not a big deal," Harry said, putting a hand over the notebook. "None of the others had any symptoms, just me. And I'm better now."

"Do you want me to make you something to eat?" Hermione asked, eyeing him closely. "Or maybe you should lie down for a while —"

"No, I'm fine," Harry waved off the suggestions. "And besides, we have a guest I'd like to introduce you to, someone I met in Diagon Alley earlier today."

"Harry!" Hermione gave him a plaintive look. "I wish you'd warned me — I look a mess!"

"It's okay," Harry said, soothingly. "He and I have just been — well, catching up on old times." He turned toward the door and called, "James, you can come in now."

Monroe entered the room, smiling and nodding toward Hermione. "You remember my wife, Hermione Granger-Potter?"

"I don't believe we actually met," Monroe said. He put out a hand and Hermione shook it, mostly by reflex. "I've seen your picture in the _Prophet_, of course."

Hermione was giving him a strange look. "Excuse me," she said, baffled. "Aren't you supposed to be a _Muggle_?"

"I thought so," Monroe grinned, "until this morning. I woke up and suddenly all these memories came flooding into my head."

Hermione let go of his hand, her eyes flicking back and forth between Monroe and Harry. "Why did you think you were a Muggle?"

"I don't know," Monroe said. "Harry though I —"

"I came up with a couple of ideas why his memories might have been hidden," Harry cut over him. "But we still don't have anything concrete to go on, yet."

"Harry," Hermione was giving him a sharp look. "Does Malfoy know about this?"

"Well —" Harry glanced at his watch. "We've been talking for a few hours, now, so my guess is, yes, he does. I'm sure someone has told him by now."

Both Monroe and Hermione gave him curious looks. "It almost sounds like you suspect someone of informing on you," Monroe said.

"Diagon Alley is full of ears," Harry answered, obliquely.

"Did you register at the Ministry of Magic when you entered the country?" Hermione asked Monroe. Monroe shook his head.

"I don't remember entering Britain as a wizard," he said. "I didn't know anything about it at all until today!"

"The Aurors will have a legitimate reason to pick you up if you haven't registered as a foreign national living in Wizarding Britain within 30 days of entering the country," Hermione told him. "You'll have to go in as soon as possible and register."

"That's one reason why he's here," Harry said. "I'm hoping you can grease the wheels down at the Ministry a bit so Malfoy won't have any reason to hold him for questioning."

Monroe looked startled by the remark. "Questioning? _Again_?"

"He'll want to grill you for details about how and why you came to Britain, your purpose here, and how long you plan to stay," Harry said. "I'm sure he'll suspect some kind of collusion between you and me."

"And with me," Hermione added, unhappily. "If I cut through red tape to keep him away from Draco."

"Nothing he'll be able to prove," Harry dismissed her concern. "After all, he had James Obliviated. The case can be made that it went wrong."

"As I recall," Hermione pointed out. "Mr. Monroe was Obliviated _several_ times in the last few days."

"Every time was justifiable under the circumstances," Harry argued.

Hermione shook her head, but Harry was right — at least, as far as she knew with the information she currently had. "Fine," she sighed, resigned to doing as he'd asked. "I'll have the necessaries expedited tomorrow morning. Mr. Monroe, you'll have to come to the Ministry tomorrow afternoon to sign the papers granting you status as a citizen of Wizarding Britain."

Monroe nodded. "Excellent!" Harry clapped him on the shoulder. "Hermione and I will treat you to dinner tomorrow night at Mary's Place. The food there is quite good."

But Hermione was shaking her head. "I can't," she said. "I can't bypass procedure to make Mr. Monroe a citizen and then be seen eating with him right after that. That's too much coincidence even for Draco to swallow!"

Harry's face fell. "I thought you enjoyed dinner at Mary's, love," he said in a disappointed tone. "Malfoy doesn't even need to know you're there."

Hermione gave him a wry look. "How are you going to arrange _that_?"

"You can use the Invisibility Cloak —"

Hermione's eyes flicked momentarily to Monroe. "Harry, I'm not going to sneak around like some thief in the night —!"

"It's not like that!" Harry objected.

"Well, it would feel like that to me!" Hermione waved her hands as Harry began to argue again. "No, no, no — you and Mr. Monroe go and have a nice dinner, you and I can go again some other night." She wagged a stern finger at him. "You do _owe_ me for this, Harry."

"I know, love. Thank you!" Harry kissed her on the cheek again. "James and I are going to make arrangements for him to spend the night somewhere."

"Not here?" Hermione almost looked surprised. "That's probably a good idea, actually — Draco would surely suspect something was going on if he spent the night here."

"My thought exactly," Harry agreed. "I'll be back in a little while." He and Monroe left the living room, heading to the entrance room.

=ooo=

"That will be five Galleons," Hannah Abbott said, holding out her hand. Monroe dropped the coins onto her palm, and Hannah slipped them into a _very_ secure pocket in her robes while at the same time extending a key for room 11 toward the unknown wizard who'd requested a room with her other hand.

"Checkout time is noon, Mr. Smith," she added, as the man nodded and began to turn away ("James Smith" was the name Monroe had signed in under). "Breakfast is served from seven-thirty to eleven."

"Thank you," Monroe smiled at the woman. He picked up the two butterbeers he'd ordered and turned to walk back to a table not far from the door to the pub. On his way a small man at a table raised a mug as he passed, smiling. Monroe nodded and raised a bottle as well, but gave the man a curious look as he continued on to the table where he sat across from another man sat, a cloak and hood concealing his features.

Hannah was looking at the hooded man as well. There was something familiar about him, but the hood and cloak obscured his features too much for her to recognize him.

"Who was that?" Monroe nodded toward the small man, who was taking large drinks from his mug between raising to each of the other patrons in the bar.

Harry leaned slightly to look around Monroe. "Oh, that's Dedalus Diggle," he said, leaning back quickly so Diggle wouldn't notice him and raise another toast. Harry didn't want to be noticed — it would also draw attention to Monroe, and they could certainly do without that! "An interesting fellow. He's obviously celebrating something this evening — I've never seen him drink so freely."

"Well, anyway, I'm set for the night," Monroe said as he set the other butterbeer he was carrying in front of Harry, who picked it up and took a quick gulp.

"She'll have everything set by lunch," he said, carefully avoiding using his wife's name in case Hannah was listening more closely than she appeared to be. "You can go in about one. I expect there'll be some — discussion — about your status, but it should go through."

"And then?" Monroe prompted.

"And then we can resume _our_ discussions," Harry continued. Monroe nodded agreement.

"Have a good night's rest," Harry said, then tipped back the bottle of butterbeer, draining it. "Ahhhh…" His hood slipped back for a moment but he pulled it back over his face quickly. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, grinning at Monroe. "See you later, James."

"Take it easy," Monroe said, and Harry rose and left the Leaky Cauldron. Monroe drained his own bottle, then stood and walked up the wooden staircase leading to the rooms above the bar.

Hannah, who had watched both men leave, stood pondering what (and who) she thought she'd just seen, then informed one of her barmaids she would be in her office for a few minutes and entered the small room where she conducted her most important business.

She sat down at her desk, took a small piece of parchment and a quill, and began writing, certain that the person the note was for would find it interesting that Harry Potter had just been in the Leaky Cauldron with a wizard she'd never seen before. A wizard who matched the description of a fugitive the Ministry was on the lookout for.

=ooo=

**Author's Note: For those of you who have been wondering, Less Wrong and I are not the same person.**


	9. Another One Rides the Bus

**Chapter Nine  
><strong>**Another One Rides the Bus**

Updated 2/24/2012

"_Did you hear him squeal like a little bitch?__"_

**=ooo=**

Monroe opened the door to room 11, then took out his wand and muttered "_Lumos_" so he could see inside the darkened room. The light from his wand showed a couple of nearby wall lamps as well as one on the dresser. He pointed his wand at each lamp in turn, saying "_Incendio_" to light them, then extinguished his wand and stepped into the room.

It wasn't a very big room, Monroe noted, but it had a good-sized, comfortable looking bed with a bedside table next to it, a dresser, and a wardrobe, all of highly polished oak. The floor was wood but there was an area rug covering most of the open floor. Monroe sat on the bed; it was not overly soft but it was comfortable enough. There was no bathroom but Monroe had seen a room at the end of the hall marked "Lavatory." Presumably that was where guests went to wash up.

Monroe considered his options. The woman downstairs had stared a bit too long at him and Harry; he figured the Ministry had put out the word that suspicious wizards should be reported. If that was the case he could expect a visit from some Aurors before long. He intended to go into the Ministry, but on his own terms, not theirs. If Head Auror Malfoy wanted him he could damn well try to catch him!

With that thought Monroe stood, raised his wand, and began preparing for the arrival of the Aurors.

**=ooo=**

Vincent Crabbe stepped into his partner Gregory Goyle's cubicle with an unfolded piece of parchment in his hand. "Just got a hit on that Monroe character," he said, handing Goyle the parchment. "Witch over at the Leaky Cauldron sent this note."

Goyle took the note and read it.

* * *

><p><strong>Mr Malfoy,<strong>

** I received the Ministry bulletin this afternoon describing a wizard who might be hiding out in Britain under false pretenses. A person matching that description checked into the Leaky Cauldron this evening (I've included his likeness below). The person is checked into room 11.**

** There was a person with him who might have been Harry Potter- whatever his name is, but I didn't get a long enough look to be sure.**

** If you intend to pick up this person tonight please let me know when you'll be here and I'll arrange to have you let in.**

** Sincerely,**

** Hanna Abbott**

** Proprietress, The Leaky Cauldron **

* * *

><p>Below the handwriting was a decent drawing of the person in question. "Looks like him," Goyle nodded, handing the note back to Crabbe. He stood, stretching a bit to loosen his muscles from sitting too long. "You ready to go, then?"<p>

"Yeah, just let me write it in the log," Crabbe said, taking a bound notebook from the corner of his desk and opening it to the last written page. In it he wrote down the date and time, then

_Got a tip from Hanna Abbott at the LC, Monroe checked in there tonight. Will go pick him up pursuant to the warrant issued earlier today._

The log book was magically connected (via a Protean Charm) to a book in Head Auror Malfoy's study at Malfoy Manor. When anything changed in Malfoy's log book it would glow red, to let him know new information had been entered. Malfoy had books for all his Auror teams but only Crabbe and Goyle's log book was kept on his desk — the others were on a shelf behind him.

Crabbe closed the book and stood. "Let's go," he said, grabbing his cloak.

"Er —" Goyle hesitated a second. "Shouldn't we let, uh, the proprietress of the Leaky Cauldron know we're coming?"

Crabbe raised an eyebrow at his partner. "Nah, no use taking the chance Monroe will find out we're coming and beat it. What're you thinking, anyway?"

"Nothin'," Goyle shrugged. "She asked an' I thought we could —"

"You thought wrong," Crabbe said, shortly. He threw his cloak over his shoulders. "Come on."

The two men took a lift to the Atrium and took a Floo connection that landed them in the office of the Leaky Cauldron. Hannah Abbott was sitting at her desk but was snoring softly, asleep. Crabbe looked at Goyle with satisfaction, putting a finger to his lips. They walked softly out of the office into to bar, where a few customers glanced up, recognizing them; they dropped coins on their tables and left the pub without a backward glance, except for one rather short wizard both of them recognized, who tipped his hat to them as he left.

"Pretty much what I expected," Crabbe muttered to Goyle. "This place would've already been empty if we let on we were coming." He took out his wand and Goyle followed suit. "Monroe's supposed to be in room 11, it's the first one at the top of the stairs."

Before climbing the stairs, however, Crabbe pointed his wand at them, casting several detection spells to determine if walking up them would set off any alarms. They didn't want to give Monroe any chance of escaping.

"When we go in," Crabbe said, his normally soft voice so quiet Goyle had to strain to hear it. "I'll open the door and you Body Bind Monroe before he has a chance to say anything. I'll follow up with a Stunner if needed. No point giving him a chance to escape." Goyle nodded agreement.

A quick spell on the door confirmed it was magically locked, but Auror Training had provided unlocking spells even more powerful than _Alohomora_. Crabbe unlocked the door, then twisted the doorknob and pushed it in. Goyle stepped through in perfect synchronization, and even as the man in the bed lurched upward, squeaking "No! Don't —" Goyle's Body Bind curse struck him and he fell backwards, stiff and unable to move.

Crabbe was chuckling as he stepped inside behind Goyle. "Did you hear him squeal like a little bitch?" he snorted. But the sneer on his face disappeared as he looked at the man they'd just captured. "What the hell —?"

"That ain't Monroe," Goyle said, sounding confused. "Did we get the wrong room or —"

"No we didn't get the wrong room!" Crabbe snapped. He canceled the Body Bind spell. "What are you doing up in this room, Diggle?" he asked sharply.

Dedalus Diggle looked up meekly at the two Aurors towering over him. "I — I don't know," he said, slowly. "I was having a drink downstairs and suddenly I was…I was —"

Crabbe looked at Goyle. "Monroe must've figured out what was up, somehow. We saw "Diggle" leave the Cauldron — he's probably long gone by now."

He turned just in time to see the door close by itself with a loud _CLACK_ that suggested a locking spell. "What the hell?" Crabbe said, stepping over to the door and trying the knob. It wouldn't turn. He pointed his wand at the knob and canted his Ministry unlocking spell. Nothing happened. "Goddammit!" Crabbe swore, then picked up a water basin sitting on the basin.

"_Portus_," he snarled, and the basin glowed blue. "Come on," he said to Goyle. "He _has_ to be the Diggle that left when we got here! He was probably Polyjuiced."

"Bu he could be anywhere by now," Goyle protested.

"That ain't gonna stop the boss from reaming us out if we don't at least try to find him," Crabbe snapped. Goyle had to agree that made sense. He reached out and touched the basin. It glowed blue and a moment later they landed in Charing Cross Road, outside the Cauldron. The street was empty.

"_Now_ what?" Goyle asked as they looked up and down the road for any sign of which way Monroe may have gone, assuming he didn't simply Apparate away once outside the Cauldron.

"Now?" Crabbe looked supremely frustrated and angry. "Now we go back and grill Diggle for anything he knows about what happened — I don't care if we have to use a whole _vial_ of Veritaserum on him!"

**=ooo=**

_A few seconds earlier:_

Outside the Leaky Cauldron, Monroe smiled despite the nausea and discomfort he was feeling as he returned to his original feature. He would have to make other sleeping arrangements that night, but there was an easy solution for that, now that he no longer resembled Dedalus Diggle.

He raised his wand hand in the air.

There was a BANG and a triple-decker, violently purple bus suddenly appeared at the curb in front of him. The door opened and a young man wearing a purple uniform leaned out to look at Monroe.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus," the young man said, speaking in a sing-song manner. "Emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is —"

"Let's get going," Monroe said briskly, stepping past the young man. "I'll figure out where I'm headed once we're on our way."

The young man gave Monroe a hurt look, a bit miffed at having his introductory patter cut off in mid-sentence, but he stepped back as well, the door closed, and the Bus disappeared with another BANG.

Monroe nodded to the driver, an elderly, bespectacled man who touched the brim of his cap and gave him a grin in return, then turned back to his driving. He looked to the rear of the bus; as expected, there were half a dozen beds arranged haphazardly along the length of the bus. Three of the beds were already occupied. One person, a handsome wizard with long blond hair done up in curlers and a hairnet, a wizard who looked somewhat familiar to Monroe, was already asleep but the other two occupants were sitting on the edge of their beds sipping drinks from cups. From the front of their nightshirts Monroe could tell they'd already been through a bumpy ride — both of them had stains from spilled cocoa or tea.

"So where yeh headed?" the conductor had come up behind Monroe and was looking at him interestedly.'

"Well —" Monroe mused silently for several seconds. "I need to be in Diagon Alley tomorrow morning, but not until around one p.m."

"Huh!" the conductor chuckled. "That's where we picked yeh up, yeh know," he said. "Di'nt yeh know where yeh was?"

"I knew," Monroe replied. "I'd just — well, sort of wore out my welcome at the Leaky Cauldron is all."

"Oh," the young man nodded sagely. "Skipped out on yer bill, did yeh?"

Monroe gave the kid an indignant look. "Of course not!"

"On the lam, then?"

Monroe smiled in spite of himself. "In a manner of speaking. Let's just say someone arrived that I didn't care to talk to, and leave it at that."

"Fine by me," the conductor shrugged. "So where d'yeh want to go, then?"

Monroe pointed to one of the empty beds. "Just to sleep for now. How much for me to just ride the Bus until about noon, then get off at the Leaky Cauldron?"

"Hmm," the young man rubbed his chin, thinking. "Usually folks just want to go from one place to another, an' that's how we charge 'em. We got a minimum charge of five Sickles — I s'pose we can charge yeh that. He gave Monroe a shrewd look. "But bed rental's gonna cost yeh extra."

"How much extra?" Monroe asked.

"Two Sickles an hour," the kid stated. "Mind, it's only because nobody else can use the bed while yer innit."

Monroe grinned. "Are you expecting full occupancy tonight?"

The kid shrugged. "Yeh never know…"

"I'll take it," Monroe said. He pulled a pouch out of his pocket and took out a Galleon. "Hold onto this for now and we'll total up the cost when I get off."

The kid took the Galleon, examined it for a second, then dropped it into a mechanism next to the driver. The Galleon promptly disappeared into the guts of the machine. "Yeh drive a hard bargain, Mister — eh, Mister…" he paused expectantly, waiting for Monroe to give his name.

"Smith," Monroe said, "James Smith," giving the name he'd used at the Leaky Cauldron. It might get him into trouble down the road, especially if the Aurors decided to check the Bus before noon tomorrow. But he certainly wasn't going to give his real name! "What's yours?"

"Wally Wagstaff," the young answered immediately, obviously bursting to get that out. "An' I'll be yer conductor this evening." He jerked a thumb at the driver. "That's Bert Prang, our driver." Bert, the driver, turned his head and touched his cap in greeting again.

"I guess we better get yeh settled," Wally said, rubbing his chin as he stared at the three unoccupied beds available on the first level. He pointed to the nearest one. "Whyn't yeh take that one?"

"Cork County comin' up, Wally," Bert, the driver, said over his shoulder. There was a note of warning in his voice. Wally nodded distractedly; the driver sighed resignedly and turned back to his driving.

Monroe walked over to the bed, pressing down on it to test the mattress. "Feels good to me," he said, looking back at Wally.

"Anythin' else I can getcha?" Wally went on, as if reciting from a list. "Some tea or hot chocolate? A toothbrush? A warm —"

BANG.

"— blanket?" Wally finished, as the Bus lurched violently, and Monroe fell onto the bed, but just barely, as it tried to slide away from him.

"A hot chocolate, I guess," Monroe said, sitting back up. He wasn't altogether sure how he was going to drink it, though.

"Right-o," Wally nodded, then seemed to realize the Bus had just jumped again. "Oh! Guess I better go wake Mr. Lockhart, this is his stop."

_Well, I knew this thing was a bumpy ride_, Monroe thought, as Wally hurried past him and shook the shoulder of the blond wizard, whom Monroe now definitely recognized as Gilderoy Lockhart, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts during his second year there. As Monroe watched, Lockhart sat bolt upright, looking around nervously before flashing a perfect smile at Wally.

"We're in Cork County, Mr. Lockhart," Wally was saying in a soft voice, though why he bothered, what with the loud BANGs the Knight Bus kept making, Monroe couldn't fathom. "Should be in Bandon in two shakes of a unicorn's tail."

"Thank you, my good lad," Lockhart tossed off the bedcovers and sat on the edge of the bed. He was wearing a lilac nightgown. "I was just waking up as you came to my bed. Always had a keen sense of what time it is, you know."

"Yes, Mr. Lockhart," Wally said, clearly in awe of the man. Monroe shook his head slightly; he knew what a fraud Lockhart was — the man couldn't teach a Defense class to save his life, despite the many dangerous creatures he'd supposedly faced over the years. He'd disappeared at the end of Monroe's second year at Hogwarts, supposedly because he wasn't being "challenged" enough in the position of DADA teacher, but there had been rumors he'd been ousted.

"Excuse me for a moment while I change into something more presentable in public." Lockhart reached under the bed and pulled out a trunk that expanded as it came into view. Lockhart tipped it up on end, then pulled on a handle that opened a doorway leading into the trunk, which the blond wizard then disappeared into. The doorway shut behind him.

Monroe got up from his bed, staggering only slightly as with one last BANG the Bus stopped in front of a strange-looking house that looked as if it had been constructed by whirlwind. "The Banshee's Wail Bed and Breakfast," Bert called out, opening the door to the Bus. After a moment he turned toward the back, a look of irritation on his lined face. His glasses made his eyes seem huge, reminding Monroe of one of the teachers back at Hogwarts, Professor Trelawney. "Wally," Bert said, "I _told_ you we were headin' for County Cork! Isn't that popinjay ready yet?"

"He's changing, Bert!" Wally replied in an annoyed tone. "Give 'im a minnit!"

"He _always_ slows us down," Bert said, speaking to Monroe. "Takes minutes to get him off the Bus every time we take him somewhere!"

"Bert, Mr. Lockhart is a very important wizard!" Wally protested. "He gives important lectures all over Britain! We should be thankful he uses the Bus to get to them!"

"We should be thankful the man never learned how to Apparate properly," Bert snickered, and Monroe grinned as well. While Wally fawned all over Lockhart, it was obvious Bert was no fan.

At that moment Lockhart reappeared from his trunk, which promptly grew legs and followed him toward the door. He walked past Monroe without looking at him, taking Wally's hand in a brief handshake. "Good to see you as always, Wally," he said, genially. "I trust you've read my new book, _Magical Me Again_, the follow-up to my 1992 best-seller?"

"I haven't, Mr. Lockhart," Wally said apologetically. "But I'll get on it soon as possible!"

"Good lad!" Lockhart beamed. "You'll find many more interesting facts about me in there!" He gave Bert a look of thinly-veiled disdain. "Mr. Prang," he said coolly, then walked down the steps of the Bus, his trunk scuttling after him. "Taa, all," he said, waving one hand airily as he walked toward the weird-looking house. Bert slammed the doors closed just as the trunk got off.

"Ar," he said, an expression of disgust, then glanced at Monroe, who was looking at him. "That bloke has absolutely no shame," he muttered, low enough that Wally, who had climbed the wooden stairs at the back of the Bus to the next level, couldn't hear.

"Tell me about it," Monroe agreed, also in a low voice. "I had him for a teacher the year he taught at Hogwarts."

Bert's eyebrows shot up. "Y'mean that's _true_?" He shook his head in disbelief. "I thought he was just blatherin' on, trying to impress Wally."

"It's true," Monroe said, sitting on his bed once again. "But he made it through most of the year without teaching us a single useful thing. All seven years had to organize their own study groups and activities, _plus_ attend his useless classes. If it wasn't for Harry Potter we'd —" Monroe abruptly cut himself off. He hadn't meant to bring Harry into this conversation.

But Bert was giving him a curious look. "You knew _Harry Potter_ back then?"

"Well, I knew who he _was_," Monroe answered. "I didn't know him personally, though." Distancing himself from Harry Potter might be a good idea until he knew more about what the Wizarding world thought of Potter these days.

Wally appeared, carrying Monroe's cup of hot chocolate. "Here yeh go," he said, handing it to Monroe. "You went to school with _Harry Potter_?" he asked breathlessly.

"Yeah," Monroe said, reluctantly, not really wanting to get into a discussion about it. "I was at Hogwarts when Gilderoy Lockhart taught there," he added, hoping it would distract Wally.

It did. "_Really_?" Wally looked fascinated. "I always wondered what it would be like to have a professor like him!"

"When did you go to Hogwarts?" Monroe asked, wondering what the teachers there now were like.

"I never went to school at Hogwarts," Wally demurred. "Or anywhere else, really. I was home-schooled."

"Oh," Monroe said. He wasn't sure what to say to that.

Fortunately, Wally didn't seem to want to talk about it either, for he added, "We do have sleeping potions, if yeh want to get a kip before we drop yeh off tomorrow mornin'. Only 10 Sickles." Bert, who'd been listening to their conversation, turned away.

"Sounds like a plan," Monroe agreed enthusiastically, and Wally went to get it. Monroe put the cup of hot chocolate on a table next to the bed (as far away from him as possible) and pulled the covers over him, leaving on his street clothes in case a quick getaway was needed. Taking a potion might be an unnecessary risk, especially since the Aurors might figure out he was on the Knight Bus (though they probably assumed he Apparated away from the Leaky Cauldron).

BANG. The beds on the first level all slid sideways a foot. The Bus was off and running again.

Monroe took out an item from one of his pockets, a modified Sneakoscope with an audible alarm and a range of about 20 feet (another item from the Weasley store) and set it on the bedside table. Remembering what the Bus had just done, he set a Sticking Charm on the Sneakoscope to keep it on the table. If Aurors set it off he'd have little time to escape, but it was a risk he was willing to take in exchange for some sleep before his big day at the Ministry.

Wally returned carrying a small vial. "Here," he said. "Down th' hatch, Mr. Smith."

Monroe took the vial and uncorked it. "Cheers," he said to Wally, lifting the vial, then drained it in two gulps. He handed the vial back to the young conductor, swaying a bit as he did so. "Woah," Monroe said, his speech slowing even as he spoke. "That's…really beginning…to work…" His head dropped back on the pillows and he began snoring softly.

"I thought he'd never shut up," Wally said to Bert.

"Ar," Bert muttered, and the Bus careened on into the night.

**=ooo=**

Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were standing stiffly in front of Head Auror Malfoy's polished oaken desk. Malfoy was reading the report they'd turned in earlier that morning; though his face was a mask of non-emotion, disapproval fairly radiated from him, and neither Crabbe nor Goyle had any illusions they were getting out of their boss's office without at least getting yelled at. At _least_.

"Alright," Malfoy said at length, dropping the report on his desk and looking up at his men. "Why didn't you call for backup before you entered the Leaky Cauldron?"

Both Aurors glanced at one another; by unspoken consent Crabbe, the senior Auror, answered. "Well, it was just one wizard, sir. And he was supposed to be asleep. We didn't anticipate any problems, especially since the subject only recently found out he was a wizard."

"Right," Malfoy said, in a dangerous monotone. "And where was the first place he went to after he found this out?"

"Uh — to Ollivanders?" Crabbe ventured.

"To see _Potter_!" Malfoy said, his patience at last exhausted. "You _should_ have treated Monroe as if you were dealing with Harry Potter, not some Muggle-turned-wizard! Especially since Potter seems to have had a hand in helping him get the room!"

"Abbott wasn't sure she saw Potter," Goyle protested, weakly. It wasn't a very good reason for their goof-up.

Malfoy didn't think so either. "It was _your_ job to make sure what she saw!" he snapped harshly. "Obviously Monroe was there, remember? Oh, that's right — you didn't catch him, did you?"

"Boss —" Crabbe began, to try and mollify him, but Malfoy waved him off.

"I don't care about excuses," he said, his tone now low and dangerous. "I want _results _— you two were at the top of your Auror Training class. I expect you to act as such."

Crabbe swallowed the retort he would have liked to make, saying only, "Okay, boss. It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't," Malfoy said, then glared at the junior Auror who had just entered his office. "What?"

"Sir," the junior Auror said hesitantly. "Um — he's here."

Malfoy frowned. "Who's here?"

"Monroe, sir, the man you've been looking for all night. He just walked into the Ministry Atrium and asked to see the Minister of Magic."


	10. The Source of Magic

**Chapter Ten**

**The Source of Magic**  
>Updated 317/2012

"Bastard! _Bastard_! BASTARD!_"_

**=ooo=**

"What?" For a moment Draco Malfoy sat, mouth agape, dumbfounded by the sheer audacity of a man who would walk willingly into the lions' den of the Ministry of Magic, the very place that sought to capture him, and demand to see the Minister.

Then his lips set in a thin, hard line. There was only one explanation for such boldness, such arrogance. _Granger was in on this somehow_! Draco's mind worked furiously, trying to see how he could manipulate the circumstances to his advantage. If only Crabbe and Goyle had captured Monroe _before_ he walked into the Ministry! He could have made something out of Monroe's status as an unregistered, illegal wizard!

But that opportunity had passed. Potter had something to do with this as well, of course — the note the Abbott woman had sent the Auror Department virtually put Potter and Monroe there together. The proprietress of The Leaky Cauldron understood who was calling the shots here at the Ministry. While Granger worked to "clean up" what she saw as a government riddled with corruption (herself and her supporters excepted of course), Draco had built alliances — uneasy ones, admittedly, based on influence and a _quid pro quo_ mindset, but ones that worked for him and for his father. While Harry Potter was the de facto landlord of Diagon Alley these days, Draco Malfoy was the de facto rent and tax collector, and the shopkeepers there knew him as the man who kept Harry Potter's greed in check, allowing them to remain in business in spite of the strain Potter's rents and taxes put on them.

Of course, it would never do for them to know that most of the rent and tax gold Malfoy supposedly kept Potter from collecting had actually been put in place by men in the Ministry and Wizengamot that were beholden to Lord Malfoy.

He probably wouldn't be able to charge Monroe for being in Britain illegally; Malfoy could see that even now, but he might be able to salvage something out of this, if he could get Monroe alone for a few minutes. That could be risky — if Potter suspected anything Draco's efforts would be in vain. But it was worth the risk.

A bare moment had passed while Draco calculated all this. His eyes, now as cold and gray as his father's, returned to the young Auror as his face went deceptively neutral. "Where is Monroe now?" he asked in a calm tone.

If the young Auror was surprised by her Head's sudden mood swing, she kept it carefully hidden. "He's, uh, at the Security Station, sir."

"Has the Minister been informed yet?" Draco asked.

The young woman's eyes were beginning to look panicked. _She's worried about giving me the wrong answer_, Draco could see it. It was true enough; if she'd walked in five minutes ago and given him bad news, he would have likely had her shipped off to the Transylvania detail monitoring vampire activity in that region. He let a small amount of warmth show in his face, then spoke. "It's okay, Zeller, I just need to know."

Chriss Zeller nodded, relieved something awful wasn't going to happen to her. "We sent Alfred up to let her know." Alfred was the guard manning the Atrium security station; he'd replaced Eric Munch a number of years ago when Munch "retired" after inadvertently detaining a newly-appointed Head Auror, whom he hadn't recognized. It was one of the few times Draco had acted without thinking — he'd been incensed that the man hadn't realized who he was and fired him on the spot. It would have severely crippled his future at the Ministry if Lord Malfoy hadn't "arranged" for Munch to return to his position after the "misunderstanding" with the new Head Auror. Malfoy had the matter cleared up, and Munch was put on medical leave until his retirement a month later.

The story of Eric Munch was one of many Zeller had heard about her boss during her training period and the short time she'd worked in the Auror Department. She'd paled when the other Aurors had sent her to deliver the news about James Monroe to the Head. Zeller hoped her Occlumency training would hold as she asked, "Is there — is there anything else, sir?" hoping he was done with her.

"No, that's all," Malfoy said, waving her away. "Dismissed." Zeller nodded again and quickly retreated from the office.

After the door closed Malfoy turned to Crabbe and Goyle; they had remained silent, wondering how the Head would react to the news of Monroe's arrival at the Ministry. It could not be good for either of them, both men knew. Draco had dearly wanted the information he suspected Monroe had on Potter's plans for him, and they had failed to deliver.

But Malfoy merely said, "I want you to put Monroe in an interrogation room — I don't care which one, but use the coin to let me know."

Crabbe smiled thinly and nodded. The "coin" Draco referred to was a Galleon that had a Protean Charm on it, linked with a Galleon Draco kept with him at all times. Crabbe or Goyle could Transfigure their coins with a short message that would also appear on the Head's coin. It was a handy little device that ironically had been invented back in their school days by Hermione Granger, during the Very Bad Year when the Ministry had sent Dolores Umbridge to the school as its Defense professor, back when Cornelius Fudge suspected Dumbledore of mounting a takeover bid for the Ministry.

That fear had been groundless, of course — Dumbledore was crazy but he wasn't stupid; for reasons Draco had never understood about the Headmaster, that old, powerful wizard had no ambition beyond running Hogwarts. In fact, after the crisis with You-Know-Who at the end of Draco's first year, he hardly seemed to have any ambition at all, at least until some years later, when he began inviting Harry Potter to his office more and more, for what purpose Draco had never managed to learn.

Oh, how Draco had wished he could have been a fly Animagus during those years! He'd desperately tried to find a way to spy on Potter and Dumbledore during those meetings — his father had actually given him permission to use whatever means he could to do so, short of becoming an Animagus. The consequences of being an unregistered Animagus were too severe (two years in Azkaban) if he were to be caught, and being a registered Animagus effectively negated any advantage of being able to take another form. His father had forbade him from learning how to become one, though Professor Snape had been willing to teach him — apparently Snape had his own agenda against Potter, though Draco had never found out about that, either. The last few years at Hogwarts were frustrating ones for Draco Malfoy.

"Will do, Boss," Crabbe grunted, then both he and Goyle turned and left the office. Malfoy sat back in his chair, smiling slightly as he pulled the charmed Galleon from the hidden pocket where he kept it. As soon as they let him know where Monroe was, he would use the secret passage from his office to the interrogation area. And _then_ he would set things in motion to bring Harry Potter down, once and for all.

**=ooo=**

Monroe sat in the uncomfortable wooden chair he'd been shoved at, watching the two large Aurors he'd so neatly avoided the previous evening. Both men's expressions were carefully neutral, unlike the first time he'd been in an interrogation room with them. Monroe supposed that they were keeping their emotions in check, for which he was grateful. It wasn't difficult to imagine they harbored some hard feelings about last night.

The larger of the two men moved casually out of view, reaching into a pocket as he did so. Monroe glanced at the other Auror, the one with coarse, bristle-like hair, then down toward his feet, though his head was turned enough that from the corner of his vision he saw the larger Auror tapping something in his hand with his wand. A moment later both hands disappeared momentarily into the large Auror's pockets, and he sauntered back into Monroe's field of vision.

"You did a pretty good job evading us last night," he said, in a tone more friendly than Monroe would have expected. "You were pretending to be Dedalus Diggle when we walked in, weren't you?"

"Of course." Monroe saw no reason to lie now. "I knew the owner had turned me in."

"How?" the smaller Auror asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.

"She was watching me as I went up to my room," Monroe answered. "There was more than idle interest in her eyes. I might have been wrong, but it seemed prudent to take precautions against anyone from the Auror Department showing up at my door that night."

"And what was Harry Potter's role in all this?" Crabbe, the larger Auror asked, a touch of impatience in his voice.

Monroe raised an eyebrow at the question. "Potter? I haven't seen Harry Potter since I left his office on August first."

"You sure about that?" a new but familiar voice asked. Monroe turned his head but the person speaking was already behind him. "We have information that you saw him just yesterday, at the Weasleys' shop in Diagon Alley."

"He was at the shop when I was there," Monroe admitted, with a shrug. "But he was having lunch upstairs with the Weasley boys, their wives told me. I was just there because I recognized the name from my time at Hogwarts. It was a coincidence that Potter was there at the same time. But he never came down to see me."

"That's not what they told us," the familiar voice behind him disagreed. Malfoy moved into his field of vision. "Are you sure you want to go with that story?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," Monroe said, calmly. That was the story Harry told him to go with — it was obvious Malfoy was trying to trip him up. A magical examination of the shop could put both Harry and Monroe at the shop at the same time, but it could not prove they spoke to one another. Veritaserum might prove it, but Monroe had already taken the antidote for that, and his Occlumency shields were firmly in place.

"Hmm," Malfoy said, turning toward Crabbe, his body hiding the coded hand gesture he made toward the large Auror. He stepped out of view behind Monroe once again.

Crabbe stepped forward and leaned down, putting his face inches from Monroe's. "You think you're pretty smart, don't you?" he sneered. "Suppose we told you we have recordings of you and Potter talking at the Weasley shop. What would you say _then_?"

"I'd say produce them," Monroe answered. Harry was too cautious for something like that, never mind the Weasley brothers allowing Ministry bugs in their shop.

"Maybe we will, at your trial," Goyle leaned down into Monroe's face as well. "It won't go well for you if you say you're innocent and we produce that recording."

Behind them, Malfoy had silently taken out his wand and was pointing it at Monroe. He wordlessly cast the Ministry Trace spell on him.

The _Trace_ was a spell placed on every newborn witch or wizard, a spell that allowed the Ministry to track their location and alert them whenever magic was cast by them or around them. Normally, it broke automatically when the witch or wizard reached their majority, seventeen years of age, and could not be cast on an adult wizard.

_This_ spell, however, had been specially developed by the Department of Mysteries to allow special surveillance of witches or wizards operating undercover to locate Dark Wizards and those suspected of other high crimes. It allowed the Ministry to listen in on conversations in the vicinity of the bewitched wizard, and was effective through nearly every ward or anti-detection spell. No one outside the highest levels of the Auror Department knew the spell existed; not even the Minister of Magic herself was privy to its existence. This spell would give Draco the advantage he needed — the ability to hear firsthand what Potter and Monroe were talking about. Harry Potter's interest in this wizard had gone completely out of proportion for a mere former classmate that had been posing as a Muggle for the past twenty-odd years.

"I suppose that's a chance I'll have to take," Monroe replied, in a dry voice, looking directly into Crabbe's beady eyes. The two men stared at each other for several long seconds. Behind them, the door to the room opened and closed, and there was a muted conversation. Finally Crabbe sneered and stepped back.

"Yeah, I guess you will," he said. He looked up at Malfoy. "Any other questions for him, sir?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"…No," Malfoy finally said, sounding disappointed. "I've just been notified that this man has been duly registered as a wizard in Great Britain, retroactive to his original entry into our jurisdiction five years ago, and the charges have been dropped. He's free to leave under his own recognizance. Turn him loose."

Malfoy walked quickly out of the room, smiling as he made his way back to his office. Everything was in place now — he would soon find out what Potter and Monroe were up to!

**=ooo=**

Harry was waiting for Monroe beneath his Invisibility Cloak near the Ministry's visitor entrance — a red telephone box on a little-traveled street that it shared with a pub, a few abandoned offices, and a nearby wall covered in graffiti. It had changed little in the time since Harry had first visited the Ministry, years earlier. He was under the Cloak in case someone emerged from the telephone box along with Monroe — like an Auror detail Disillusioned to follow him.

(In his office, Draco tapped one of his desk drawers, invoking a charm that unlocked the drawer for him alone. Reaching into the drawer, he took out a small cube and placed it on his desktop, then tapped the cube, linking it with the charm he had placed on Monroe minutes earlier. He would now be able to hear everything spoken by Monroe and anyone near him.)

Monroe stepped out of the phone box alone, looking around expectantly. "Harry?" he muttered softly.

"Here," Harry answered, softly, moving closer to Monroe. "Let's walk a bit — I want to be well away from this area before we talk."

(Draco smiled. So Potter _was_ waiting for Monroe outside the Ministry! Things were working out exactly as he'd hoped.)

Monroe nodded and walked casually up the street to the first intersection, then turned west as he felt Harry's hand on his elbow, invisibly directing him to turn that way. He immediately recognized the direction. "Are we heading to —"

"Shhh," Harry shushed him. The invisible hand guided him again. "Just in here," Harry said, maneuvering Monroe into a small alley between two buildings. As they stepped into the shadows the Cloak suddenly covered Monroe and Harry took Monroe's hand, placing it on his arm. "Side-Along," he said shortly. The arm twisted away from Monroe, and he followed it —

The uncomfortable sensation of Apparition engulfed them for several moments, and they found themselves on another, familiar street, staring at a shabby door located between book and record shops on either side of it. Monroe had emerged from that door only hours earlier, evading Aurors who had arrived to take him into custody.

Monroe turned to Harry. "Are we going in?" he asked.

"In a bit," Harry said. "As soon as someone goes in or leaves — I don't want us to be seen together right now, not so soon after your charges were dropped. Malfoy didn't protest that nearly as much as I expected him to. I wonder why."

(_Of course you do_, Draco thought smugly. He could guess where Potter had taken them — he was heading toward Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes!)

Harry and Monroe waited near the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron for several minutes before they saw a familiar figure walking up Charing Cross Road toward them. Both men immediately recognized Dedalus Diggle, a regular patron of the Cauldron. This afternoon, however, Diggle's normally cheerful demeanor was absent, replaced with a sober expression from his recent misadventures with Ministry Aurors. A few pedestrians on the street did double takes at his robe, cloak and top hat, but they quickly lost interest as Diggle passed them. There were much stranger things to be seen on the streets of London these days. Looking neither right nor left, Diggle entered the Leaky Cauldron, with Harry and Monroe hard on his heels.

Harry pointed to the back of the shop and they wasted no time making their way into the courtyard where the entrance to Diagon Alley awaited them. Taking out his wand, Harry tapped the third up, second across from the lone dustbin standing against the wall, which began to shift and transform into the archway leading into Diagon Alley.

(Draco rubbed his hands together gleefully. Potter and Monroe _were_ heading to the Weasley shop, he just knew it — they undoubtedly planned to resume whatever conversation they had started there just a few days earlier. _This_ time, however, they would have one more person listening in than they expected!)

It was slow going under the Invisibility Cloak with two grown men beneath it, but Harry had insisted they stay Cloaked until reaching their destination. They moved along Diagon Alley, staying as far as possible from other visitors wandering, standing or window-shopping. It made for a meandering path, as people tended not to move aside for people they could not see.

Gringotts was in sight when Harry suddenly turned down a tiny byway some distance before and across from the Wizarding bank. They came to a halt, and Monroe looked around; nothing nearby looked familiar. "Why are we stopping here?" he asked, but Harry merely shook his head before slipping out from under the Cloak.

"I'll be back in a minute or two," he said, to apparently empty air. "Stay here until I come for you." Harry disappeared back into Diagon Alley proper.

(Draco smiled in anticipation. He's probably making sure the coast was clear at Weasleys' before they arrived there.)

Harry reappeared a few minutes later. "Our reservation is ready," he said. "I want you to stay under the Cloak, however. I'll tell the staff I expect you shortly, but that they should only disturb me when you arrive. That should give us enough time for us to discuss what I want to talk to you about. Come on."

Harry led the way through a an oaken door into a very nice dining establishment. "Potter, party of two for Mary's Room," he told the hostess. "The other member of my party has not arrived yet, but should be along shortly."

(Draco's smile faded. Mary's Room? He wondered anxiously if the Trace spell would work through the walls of that room. As far as he remembered, no one who'd been Traced had ever had a conversation in that room.)

The hostess escorted Harry (and the Cloaked Monroe) through the restaurant's main dining area to the room, where Mary, the owner herself, greeted Harry and bowed him into the room. Harry hesitated only a moment, which Monroe took as his cue and quietly slipped into the room ahead of him.

"When do you expect the other party, Mr. Potter?" Mary asked, respectfully.

"He's a busy man," Harry had said casually. "I hope he will make it within the hour. He said to go ahead and order for him, so we'll both have today's lunch special and ever-filling mugs of Merlin's Best Mead.

"Please bring the meals in when they're ready, but don't interrupt me otherwise until he arrives."

"May I ask who the other party is?" Mary inquired.

"Head Auror Draco Malfoy," Harry smiled.

(Draco's eyes widened in horror. That _bastard_!)

Mary bowed and left, shutting the door quietly behind her.

(How many people would hear, before the end of the day, that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were supposed to meet at Mary's Place, Draco wondered, quivering with fury. Potter had effectively undermined Draco's credibility in a lot of wizarding circles with that statement — fortunately _not_ among many that mattered, but a lot of people would no longer mistrust Potter quite so much nor fear and respect the Head Auror as greatly as they did now, not if they thought there was some kind of collaboration between him and the Boy-Who-Lived.)

Harry gestured silently for Monroe to take the chair at the opposite end of the table. Harry then put a finger to his lips, motioning for Monroe to remain silent. He sat down in the chair nearest the door, took out his wand, and waved it at the door. The handle turned on its own and the door opened slightly. Harry then looked about the room as if he were quite alone. "I wonder if Draco will get here any time soon," he said, as if ruminating aloud. "He'll like today's special, I hope." Under the Cloak, Monroe was regarding him bemusedly. Was Harry speaking for Monroe's benefit?

(Bastard! _Bastard_! BASTARD! Malfoy thought furiously as he listened to Harry's taunting words. He _knew_ something was going on with Monroe! Why else would he have gone to Mary's Place? On the other hand, the Trace was working through the enchantment on Mary's Room, which was good news for Malfoy — either Potter or Monroe _might_ let something slip while they were talking, if they thought Mary's Room was secure from any kind of scyring.)

Monroe, waiting silently beneath the Cloak of Invisibility, pondered what Harry was up to. _Why_ open the door slightly? Wasn't the point of Mary's Room to cut off all communication, mundane or magical, with the outside world? And why tell the staff here that Malfoy was his expected guest? Did Harry think Malfoy was somehow monitoring them? If he _was_ monitoring them, Malfoy was now aware that they knew that!

Twenty minutes or so after they'd entered the room, a knock at the door announced a server arriving with two of the lunch specials. "Come," Harry said, and the server entered, staring back at the door as she did so.

"Sir, I apologize," she said as she set Harry's plate in front of him. "The door was apparently left open. I…" she trailed off, not certain what to say. Visitors to Mary's Room expected perfect privacy — the open door was a breach of that implied contract.

Harry looked back at the door as if the fact that it was open was news to him, but didn't appear upset by it. "It's alright," he told the server. "My guest hasn't shown up yet."

"Would you like me to keep your plates hot while you wait, sir?" the server asked, relieved that the customer was not making trouble about the open door.

"No, you can leave them both here," Harry said. The server nodded and placed the second plate in front of the empty chair at the opposite end. "If my guest arrives before I finish," Harry reminded her, "please show him in, but don't disturb me for anything else."

The server nodded, bowed, and retreated, closing the door carefully behind her. Harry waved his wand at the door again, and this time the inner bolt slid into black with a loud _clack_. Harry then spoke no less than twenty-seven charms, providing even more protection against scrying and other situations that would compromise their privacy, while Monroe waited silently for him to finish.

(Draco listened anxiously as Harry spoke the spells one by one. The Trace should be able to work through any charm, seeing as it was already within the protection established by Mary's Room and whatever wards Potter added. There was no known way for anyone to detect the Trace — you just had to know it was there. But until Harry finished with his wards, and Draco could still hear him, there was no knowing if he was going to be in on their conversation or not.)

Harry finished the twenty-seventh spell, but his wand kept moving in intricate patterns — once, twice, thrice, as he silently performed three final spells, then put away his wand. Looking toward the other end of the table, he explained. "In case you've never heard of Mary's Place, as well as being a very fine Wizarding restaurant, it also has this room, called Mary's Room, a place where people can go to have _very_ private conversations. My wife and I use it from time to time — not so much because we need to have very private conversations as to have some 'alone time' for just the two of us."

"Nice," Monroe said, still beneath the Cloak. "But I assume this is not 'alone time' for me and you."

Harry chuckled, but only for a moment. "I have a more practical reason for being here. There's a longstanding rumor that the Ministry has a special surveillance spell it can place on wizards they want to eavesdrop on. The spell cannot be detected by any spell or device currently known, so we have no way to check for it. But I would bet a hundred Galleons that it's been placed on you."

Monroe took off the Invisibility Cloak. "That seems reasonable, especially since I was held in an interrogation room for a while before they released me. Malfoy showed up to question me before he got the news that the charges were dropped. He stayed behind me most of the time he was in the room. I suppose he could have put that spell on me then." Irritation was audible in his voice. "There has to be a way to get rid of it!"

"Probably not," Harry said. "A spell like that probably has a very complicated countercurse."

(_It did_, Malfoy thought, grinning once again. Their voices were still coming in loud and clear—confirmation that the Trace would work in Mary's Room, even with every spell Potter could throw at it!)

Harry touched his left index finger to his lips as his right hand silently drew his wand again. The wand traced a complicated pattern in the air in front of him as Harry completed a series of patterns. He then put the wand away again.

"That last spell I just cast was a Gibberspeak Charm — a spell similar to one I learned back at Hogwarts, one called Muffliato."

"I remember learning Muffliato sometime in second year," Monroe recalled. "But I've never heard of Gibberspeak."

"It's one of my own," Harry said. "I've kept it as secret as Malfoy thinks his Trace spell is. It can be cast on a group of people — it makes their speech unintelligible to anyone outside the group. If Malfoy can hear us now, he has no idea what we're saying."

("What the hell is going on?" Draco muttered to himself. "_What are they saying_?" He took out his wand again, casting several spells designed to detect and end cryptography spells. Nothing worked. Whatever spell Potter had just cast, Draco couldn't find a way to break or dispel it, at least not from this distance.)

"Assuming Malfoy _can_ hear us," Monroe pointed out, "do you really still want to talk about whatever we came here to discuss, even if he can't understand us?"

"I don't know." Harry had a bemused look on his face. "On the one hand, it's funny that Malfoy is probably frantically trying to figure out what we're saying right now. I know my spell can be broken by brute force, but the person trying to break it has to be in my physical presence. He'll have to come here to do that, but if he shows up now everyone in Diagon Alley will know he was here to dine with me (because the staff here has undoubtedly heard by now whom I'm expecting); it will damage his reputation as a champion of the small businessman. A lot of shopkeepers think Draco is protecting them from me and my 'underhanded Muggle business practices.' If they think we're in cahoots he becomes just another Ministry Auror on the take."

"And on the other hand, as you pointed out, it's not very secure allowing him to hear _anything_ we say that we might not want him to overhear," Harry continued, drumming his fingers absently on the table, pondering which way to go.

(Draco smacked the gibberish-emitting cube off his desk in frustration. He briefly considered sending Crabbe and Goyle to Mary's Place, to drag Potter and Monroe back down to Ministry HQ, but that would only tip Potter off that he was monitoring them somehow, and he didn't want _that_. He pointed his wand at the cube. "_Accio_ _cube_," he muttered, and it flew into his hand. He dropped it into his special drawer and began considering his next move. Then he reached in the drawer and removed the cube, setting it on the desk before him again. Draco just couldn't not listen, even if he couldn't understand a thing they were saying.)

Monroe looked down at the food in front of him. "Do you mind if I eat while you make up your mind?" he asked. "I haven't had a bite since last night."

"I'll join you," Harry said, and they both tucked into the meals before them, eating in silence for several minutes. The special for the day was delicious, a meat and pasta dish that resembled chicken alfredo except that the meat wasn't chicken, the pasta wasn't fettuccini, and the sauce wasn't alfredo.

Monroe had almost finished off his repast when Harry looked up and asked, "Have you ever heard of a 'Source of Magic'?"

Monroe's last forkful of pasta stopped before entering his mouth. "A source of magic? Hmm, I guess I haven't. They never talked about that at Salem Institute. Where'd you hear of it?"

"It's something I worked out on my own," Harry said. "I wanted to talk to you about it, but I have to fill in some background."

"And Malfoy —?" Monroe queried.

"Draco actually helped me with some of this back then," Harry said, a small smile on his face at the memory. In fact, I'm not altogether sure he doesn't know about my thinking on the Source of Magic. But he's listening to gibberish right now, if he can hear anything at all, so I'm not worried about him overhearing this."

Monroe cocked his head at Harry. "That's a bit arrogant, isn't it?"

"Well I'm nothing if not arrogant," Harry laughed. "I'm trying to single-handedly bring about the Magical Singularity, aren't I? Do you want to hear this or not?"

Monroe swallowed his last mouthful of pasta. "Sure, why not?" he said around the mouthful. "We're already here, aren't we?"

"Right," Harry agreed, then paused to marshal his thoughts. "You know something about genetics, don't you?"

"Of course," Monroe nodded. "Most people do."

"Not most wizards, even today," Harry pointed out. "Most of them have never heard of DNA, have no idea what Mendelian genetics is, much less genomics and proteomics.

"So, back in 1991, shortly after I started at Hogwarts, I began to wonder why wizards had to perform spells with _exactly_ the correct pronunciation and _exactly_ the right wand gestures for them to work correctly. I even designed experiments that had test subjects say the spells with slightly different emphasis on the syllables than the right pronunciations, to see if it caused any difference."

"And it did, of course," Monroe said, smiling.

"Yeah," Harry sighed, remembering those tests with no small amount of chagrin. Hermione had teased him unmercifully after the month-long gamut of experiments he'd designed became moot after only one test session.

"So what did that have to do with the Source of Magic?" Monroe asked.

"I'll get to that," Harry replied. "After that fiasco, I had a chat with Draco Malfoy about blood."

"Blood…" Monroe repeated, thinking about how things had been, back at Hogwarts in 1991. The Slytherins had made things difficult throughout the year, bullying and harassing other students, especially Muggleborns and half-bloods. "There was some talk around that time about blood purity and how certain people, Muggles for example, and Muggleborn wizards were less pure than regular wizards."

"Malfoy, and of course his father, and quite a few Slytherins at the time, both at Hogwarts and across Wizarding Britain, subscribed to the notion of 'blood purity,'" Harry said. "I was working on trying to turn Draco from that type of thinking, so I set up a little experiment for us to run, one that I expected would render him incapable of becoming a Death Eater when he got old enough, and possibly to turn him from the Dark completely. The experiment was to determine why magic seemed to be fading in the world.

"We came up with some hypotheses about that," Harry went on. "Things like, 'Magic is fading away.' Draco _hated_ that one, by the way. He thought it wouldn't be fair if _everyone_ was losing magic, not just Muggleborns. His favorite theory was that wizards were interbreeding with Muggles, reducing blood purity. That was a major plank in Voldemort's campaign against Dumbledore, by the way.

"We also came up with some other hypotheses like, wizards weren't eating right, or Muggle technology was interfering with magic somehow. We even suggested that powerful wizards like Dumbledore or Voldemort weren't having children and so magic was decreasing by not being passed down."

"Some interesting ideas," Monroe noted. "It must have taken quite a while to work through all those experiments."

Harry scratched his head, looking a bit sheepish. "Well, actually, we only did one set of experiments, taking a little more than an hour, before we found enough data to confirm one of our hypotheses."

"And you were doing this just to trick Draco?" Monroe chuckled. "You must've gotten _awfully_ lucky with that data!"

"I had a sneaking hunch it would go my way," Harry replied. "Being a wizard didn't seem to have anything to do with a complex of genes — it was more reasonable to assume that a _single_ gene pair controlled the ability to do magic, since there are only Muggles, Squibs, and wizards, and Muggleborn wizards could be as powerful as pure-blood ones. There are only four possible choices with a single gene pair, and in half the cases you get a person carrying one wizard gene and one non-wizard gene.

"I sent Draco out to question the portraits in Hogwarts about families of wizards and how many wizards and Squibs were produced by those families. I talked to portraits too, but about spells that could be cast in the past but not today. As it turned out, that's when I found out about the Interdict of Merlin."

"Which may have been as big a blunder on Merlin's part as Einstein thought his cosmological constant was," noted Monroe, plaintively.

"It hasn't made things any easier for us," Harry agreed. "But I've thought about that a bit more, and I wonder if he did that to keep the balance between wizards and Muggles. If we had access to the same spells and potions that must've existed 800 years ago, with all that time for more progress, we wizards might be running the galaxy by now."

"Possibly," Monroe admitted. "Or wizards might have destroyed the earth by now."

Harry nodded, a sad look in his eyes. "I've thought of that, too. On the one hand, it seems a waste, but on the other, it may have kept us all alive until now. But then, Muggle technology has long had the capability of destroying the Earth as well."

"And yet we're still here." Monroe smiled. "Crazy Muggles."

Harry laughed, but for only a moment. "As I was saying," he went on, "Draco and I applied our test results to the hypotheses we'd come up with, and the one that looked most plausible was that we were losing information about magic spells because of the Interdict. _Not_ because magic itself was going away, or because 'blood purity' was being diluted. It was a serious blow to Draco's worldview — he pretty much expected to become a Death Eater like his father. But once he knew the truth, knew that Voldemort's opposition to Dumbledore was predicated on a lie, he realized he could never become a _real_ Death Eater. If he became one at all it would be only to keep up appearances. Ironically, he attributed this change in outlook to a Dark ritual he thought I tricked him into being a part of."

"That's what I'd expect from someone like him," Monroe said, his voice hard. "He seems like quite the opportunist. He must expect everyone else to be the same way."

"Well, I'm _not_ going to be his apologist," Harry said, his voice firm. "But he _had_ been indoctrinated his whole life with ideas of blood purity and the innate superiority of wizard-kind over the rest of humanity. Hell, one of his goals was to rape Luna Weasley when he got old enough! And he thought himself perfectly justified in doing so — not because he thought rape was okay, but because he thought himself and his family were above the law."

"And now that person is the head law enforcer in wizarding Britain," Monroe added, grimly. "Who the hell approved _that_ promotion?"

Harry barked a short laugh. "Hermione did, actually," he said, "at my suggestion. 'Keep your friends close…'" he quoted, letting the rest trail off unsaid.

Monroe was silent for some time, looking thoughtful. Harry watched him for a time. Then, "What are you thinking about, James?"

Monroe shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "It's not that I'm ungrateful," he began, "But —" he looked at Harry with a very ambivalent expression. "When we first met, I don't think you wanted anything more from me than to learn where I'd heard your recognition code phrase. We obviously weren't friends then. But now—" Monroe gestured at the room they were in. "Now we're having dinner at Mary's Place, and you've told me you're trying to create a Magical Singularity, and I seem to be in your confidence now. So, I suppose I'm wondering…just…what the _hell_ happened?"

Harry sat back and steepled his fingers, tapping them against his lips for some time before answering. "You're wondering when I began to —" Harry thought for a moment, "— trust you, I suppose." Monroe nodded.

"I haven't trusted anyone in a long time," Harry went on. "Not even Hermione, not completely, though I trust her more than anyone else on Earth."

Monroe thought about that, then asked, "What have I done, then, to earn your trust thus far?" He gave Harry an even look. "For my part, I haven't sought it out."

Harry returned his look. "I know. Perhaps that's in part how you've earned it. I haven't treated you that well these past few days."

"I've noticed _that_," Monroe answered, and both men chuckled.

Harry became thoughtful once again. "I suppose I was impressed with you," he told Monroe, "when you won our duel."

Monroe shook his head slightly. "I think that was mostly luck," he said, not looking in Harry's direction.

"Perhaps, but it was still impressive," Harry averred. "I've had dueling lessons from both Professor Flitwick and Professor Dumbledore. Both of them were formidable opponents, but I learned to hold my own against both of them.

"When you beat me, it made me realize that there are always other ways to solve a problem, other ways to see your way through to a solution."

Monroe chuckled. "And here I thought I was kicking your ass," he said, but it was obvious he wasn't serious. He fell silent, and the two men looked at each other for some time before Harry spoke again.

"I think we should get on with what I brought you here to talk about," Harry said. "The Source of Magic." Monroe leaned forward interestedly.

"So I had learned that there was only one thing that made you a wizard," Harry resumed. "A single allele that controlled whether you were a Muggle, a Squib, or a wizard. But that single allele, in and of itself, does not give you magical powers. Magic has to come from somewhere else."

Monroe was listening, fascinated, to what Harry was saying.

"If there was a combination of alleles," Harry continued, "a complex combination of alleles, it would be universal. Complex systems are always universal in a sexually reproducing species. They have to be, since each piece of the mechanism has to become nearly universal in a species before another variant of a gene can start to depend on that universality.

"If magic had been like that, a complex mechanism with many necessary genes and alleles, a wizard mating with a Muggle would only get about half of those genes, and half of the machine wouldn't be much good. And it would be very unlikely for a wizard, a Muggleborn, to be born to two half-wizards, to Squibs. What made you a wizard couldn't be very complicated, because we can see that people who weren't magical could produce magical children."

Harry leaned back, rubbing the sides of his face with his hands. He was getting closer to the culmination of his argument, and he wanted to be sure Monroe understood it clearly.

"But magic itself seems pretty complicated," Harry went on. "Look at how complicated the Fidelius Charm is just to _cast_, never mind the dynamics of how it operates! I had a spell cast on me once by Draco Malfoy, a torture curse that he thought might kill me. He magically locked me in a room afterwards, and I wasn't able to unlock the door or Transfigure the hinges to get out. I was barely able to escape."

Monroe raised an eyebrow at this. That could explain a lot of things about the way Harry talked about Malfoy, and why he was talking about these things even though Malfoy might be listening to them right now, Gibberish Charm or no.

Harry saw the look. "Right. Well, I won't get into the specifics of that right now, but he was pretty pissed off at me, and he thought I had planned the entire thing with the blood experiments to keep him from becoming a Death Eater and to distance him from his father."

"But you _did_ do it for those reasons," Monroe pointed out. "You said so earlier."

"I did," Harry agreed. "I didn't think it would happen so fast, though. I needed more time to acclimate Draco to the idea of scientific thinking, to not being so disappointed when his pet theory turned out to be false. But I didn't get that chance.

"Anyway, I realized there are only two ways that complexity is created — through a non-purposeful process like natural selection, which has created butterflies and thinking humans, and through purposeful, creative intent — through some form of intelligent design."

"So you're thinking magic was _designed_?" Monroe put in, sounding dubious. "I don't know if I believe that's possible."

"Really?" Harry was surprised and a bit disappointed to hear that. He had thought Monroe would instantly agree with the idea. "I can't see how it _couldn't_ have been, myself. Magic spells are complicated enough to do whatever we need them to do. We can modify spells, customize them to almost any degree we need to, if we work on them long enough. Or, at least until they get powerful enough to invoke the Interdict — that's our upper limit, and I believe that's what's saved us from the fate of Atlantis."

Both of Monroe's eyebrows rose at this. "Atlantis is just a legend," he objected. "No one has found the least indication of where it was located, nor any type of record dating to that time."

Harry's mouth set in a thin line, eerily reminiscent of a certain Hogwarts Deputy Headmistress. That was the major sticking point in his theory — no one had produced any concrete, empirical evidence that Atlantis really existed.

Otherwise it made perfect sense, though! "But you agree that the spells we use aren't complicated enough by themselves to build up the spell effects from scratch."

Monroe thought for a second. "Yeah, I agree. I've wondered about that myself."

"DNA is complicated enough, with three billion base pairs, to describe a human body," Harry argued. "Computer programs, taking up megabytes of memory, are complicated enough to create word processing and spreadsheet programs, and more complicated applications as well. So the words of a spell are more like a button on your keyboard than a blueprint for a spell. You push a button and the application performs a function using the programming it's comprised of."

Harry took out his wand and waved it at his plate, saying "_Wingardium Leviosa_." The plate floated in the air. "That's what I think the Source of Magic is," he said, as the plate slowly floated back onto the table. "It's some type of mechanism that reacts by levitating an object when someone with a specific genetic marker says 'Wingardium Leviosa' directed toward that object." He waited for Monroe's reply.

Monroe was silent for some time, resting his chin on his hand as he thought about what Harry had said, staring at Harry's plate now resting once again in front of him. At length he asked, in a flat tone, "How did you test all this, Harry?"

"One of the reasons I've been gathering ancient wizarding books," Harry replied, "is to look for references to Atlantis."

"Find anything?" In that same flat tone.

"Some," Harry answered immediately. "They identified several possible locations."

"Did you check them out?"

"Yes, as best I could," Harry said. "Mostly in the Atlantic Ocean, near the equator. There were also a few theories that Atlantis was in the Mediterranean Sea, and one that postulated it had been connected to India by an isthmus until about 10,000 B.C. I discounted the Indian legend, since Atlantis had to be isolated for the genetic marker that the Source of Magic looks for to be solely on that population."

"And what did you find in those locations you searched?" Monroe asked.

"Nothing," Harry admitted, reluctantly. "But not finding it so far doesn't mean it doesn't exist!"

"What do you suppose this 'Source of Magic' would be?" Monroe asked. "Like a Philosopher's Stone, but emitting magic rather than just transmuting base metal to gold, or turning water into Elixer Vitae?"

"Something like that," Harry agreed. "Or maybe it was found rather than designed, left on Atlantis by an even earlier civilization."

"That invites an infinite regression," Monroe objected. "You might as well say, 'God done it'."

Harry responded with annoyance in his voice. "Whatever. But until we locate where Atlantis was, we won't be able to do any testing on it, to determine its origin."

But Monroe shook his head. "I don't think that's true. I think we should do some tests to see if we can _locate_ this supposed Source of Magic, assuming it exists."

**=ooo=**

**Author's Note: A big thanks to EY (Less Wrong) for including a link to this fanfic at his site for Methods of Rationality, HPMOR dot NET. The chapters for that story have resumed once again and are very interesting to read!**


	11. The Source of Magic, Part 2

**Chapter Eleven**

**The Source of Magic, Part 2**

Updated 4/13/2012

"_You can say his name, Dean — Voldemort. It's not like he's going to come back and bite you in the ass or something.__"_

**=ooo=**

"Tests?" Harry repeated, giving Monroe a hard look. "Do you think I haven't been testing this?"

"I don't know," Monroe replied, shrugging. "_Have_ you?"

"For something like 20 years now," Harry replied.

"And you _still_ don't know where Atlantis is?" Monroe shook his head and gave what Harry might have considered a condescending smile. "Have you started to wonder yet whether any such place ever existed?"

Harry appeared reluctant to answer, but said, "Sometimes. But there has to be _some_ kind of source for magic — our bodies simply aren't complicated enough (even as complicated as they _are_) to generate magic by themselves!"

Monroe nodded. "I agree with that. But we still tire after casting spells, so energy from our bodies is being used in some way."

"Right!" Harry's voice was suddenly full of excitement. "That energy expenditure must be how the Source of Magic receives our request that a spell be cast! I've been trying to use that idea in part to locate Atlantis!"

Monroe leaned back in his chair, rocking it slowly as he thought about what Harry had said for a moment. "What was your test?"

"I started with the assumption that magical energy propagates at the speed of light, like every other fundamental force in the universe," Harry explained. "When a wizard casts a spell, he sends a request to the Source of Magic to perform the steps the spell words and wand gestures evoke. The Source of Magic then transmits the magical energy back to the wizard, where it is focused through the wand.

"With that in mind, I designed an apparatus to help me determine how much time elapsed between when the spell was cast and when the spell effect occurred," Harry continued. "I reasoned that, the farther away a wizard was from the Source of Magic, the longer a signal going back and forth between it and the wizard would take."

Monroe was nodding thoughtfully. "And so what was your methodology?" he asked. "How many tests did you perform?"

"The same test, with some variants, in various locations," Harry answered. "I performed these tests all over Britain and Ireland, in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and across Europe, from Spain to western Russia. I even performed some tests in northern Africa and once in western China."

"And the results?"

"Not what I had anticipated," Harry said, dully. "I didn't measure a perceptible difference in response time anywhere I performed the test. It always took between 19 to 22 milliseconds from the time I completed the spell until it emerged from the tip of my wand. The average was about 20.7 milliseconds."

"Which told you what?" Monroe prompted, leaning forward interestedly.

"I came up with a couple of conclusions," Harry said, leaning forward as well. "The one I considered most intriguing was that magic _does_ travel faster than light, somehow. Another one was that the Source is buried deep underground, hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles beneath us. Still another was that it might be on or inside the Moon."

"Interesting ideas." Monroe rose from his chair. "I need to move around a bit," he explained. "We've been here quite a while, now."

Harry glanced at his watch. It was a little after three p.m. now. His reservation ended at 4:45 p.m. giving the staff at Mary's Place enough time to prepare for their next guests, presumably at five p.m. "We can leave if you like," he offered. "But it will be a few days before I can reasonably reserve this room again. I have rooms at the TBC that are more secure than this one, but for a while we have to be careful about Malfoy monitoring us, at least until I figure out how to get that spell off you." Harry was referring to the Ministry surveillance spell that Malfoy had probably put on Monroe while he was being held earlier that day. "Until then we'll have to use the Gibberspeak spell."

"I would have thought you had already worked out how to remove that Trace spell," Monroe said, smiling. He was rolling his head back and forth, working the stiffness out of his neck and shoulders.

Harry shrugged. "It hasn't really affected me to this point," he said. "I haven't had much reason to talk about this stuff with anyone the Ministry is listening in on."

"Until now," Monroe added, sitting back down. "So, if magic really does propagate faster than light, what's next?"

Harry gave him an odd look. "Well, obviously, faster-than-light travel, once I work out how to make a spell propagate at that speed, instead of just communicating with the Source that way."

Monroe was silent a moment, contemplating that. "But — what if we can't communicate with the Source beyond a certain distance, like the strong nuclear force only works between hadrons, and only for distances like a femtometer or so?"

"If we figure out what the Source is," Harry replied. "We should eventually be able to duplicate it, and if we can do that, we can bring it with us."

"That's ambitious," Monroe remarked, sounding impressed.

"So is the Magical Singularity," Harry pointed out. "So is the _Technological_ Singularity, for that matter. After 25 years, I'm starting to realize again that I need some help."

"I recall that you and Malfoy seemed to be hanging out together in your first year," Monroe mentioned.

"What?" Harry was nonplussed for several seconds. "Nobody was supposed to know about that," he said at last. "How'd _you_ figure it out?"

"Oh, there were subtle clues," Monroe grinned. "One of Malfoy's lackeys would say something to you, or you and Malfoy would leave the Great Hall after dinner within a minute or two of one another, usually on a Friday or Saturday. And there were rumors as well — it wasn't as big a secret as you must have thought, though anyone trying to follow you usually lost you before they found out where you and Malfoy were meeting. Of course, all the rumors about Malfoy stayed in Slytherin — except the ones the Gryffindors started, and most of them were about whether Draco was turning you Dark, or that you were getting advice from Lord Malfoy through him. A lot of the Gryffindors were convinced you were going to be the next Dark Lord, at least until that thing between Hermione and Draco happened."

Harry suppressed a shudder. That "thing" between Draco and Hermione had been a couple of the strangest days of his life. An alleged midnight duel between Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, a duel that supposedly resulted in Hermione trying to kill Draco after he defeated her. Totally unbelievable, from Harry's perspective, and should have been the same for any rational person as well — but many wizards weren't known for being rational, it had turned out. And Lord Malfoy had manipulated the Wizengamot into a vote that made Hermione culpable for the presumed blood debt she had incurred, a vote that passed handily and would have condemned Hermione to Azkaban, a horror Harry could barely contemplate back then, until his dark side had come to the rescue, just in time.

"Whatever happened with you and Hermione and Malfoy after that?" Monroe asked, curiously. "I heard some rumors that you and she got married —"

"Not until long after that happened," Harry said abruptly, cutting him off. "But that's not important right now, anyway.

"Malfoy and I _were_ involved in some stuff together," he went on. "Mostly because I was working to turn him away from Death-Eater thinking about Muggleborns and Muggles, not because I expected him to have any deep understanding about magic. He'd done more magic than I had, of course — I suspected his father got him his wand a year or two before he came to Hogwarts, if not more. But he didn't have a _clue_ about the really deep questions about magic. He didn't care how it worked, only that it worked well for him."

"Hmm," Monroe said. "I wonder if he's still listening to us now."

**=ooo=**

"_Now_ what?"

Hermione hadn't asked the question with irritation or annoyance in her voice; it was more like puzzlement, wondering why she was being bothered again so soon after clearing James Monroe for British citizenship. The Head Auror should be back in his office, plotting.

"I've got some information you might find interesting," Draco, standing in her office, told her. "Harry Potter was seen entering Mary's Place this afternoon."

Hermione arched an eyebrow at him. Was Malfoy going to resurrect his attempt to catch Harry in some compromising situation with some young, nubile witch? She and Harry had already had this argument, _years_ ago, and if Harry had ever strayed, the affair had been emotional, not physical. For a while after Hermione had risen high in the Ministry ranks, she'd begun spending a lot more time at work than normal. "Alone?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Any reason to suspect he's meeting someone there?"

Malfoy nodded curtly.

The Minister closed her eyes briefly, but suppressed a sigh. "Anyone I know, Draco?"

Malfoy nodded again. "Monroe," he said, flatly.

_Oh lord_. Aloud, though, she asked, "Monroe's a citizen of wizarding Britain now, Harry can eat lunch with whomever he pleases. Are you upset because I granted him citizenship —?"

"It's possible Monroe is an agent of — the Dark Lord," Malfoy said abruptly.

Hermione blinked, startled. It was several seconds before she could speak again. "Where in the world did you get information like _that_?"

Draco responded in a stiff tone. "It's part of an ongoing investigation; at the current time I am uncomfortable with divulging any sources."

Hermione put her quill on the inkstand and folded her arms across her chest. "That's pretty convenient. It's also supposed to be impossible — Voldemort was destroyed long ago, and we were assured that it was permanent that time!"

"Some new information has come to light," Draco replied, smoothly.

"When will you be bringing Monroe before the Wizengamot with this information?" Hermione inquired, her voice hard. "It will have to be pretty damning evidence to convince a majority of the Wizengamot that you're correct."

"I want a chance to ask Monroe a few questions," Draco replied. "He shouldn't mind, if he's innocent. And he is a citizen of wizarding Britain now, with an obligation to come forward with anything he knows about the Dark Lord. The same goes for Harry."

"Harry is all too aware of the standard you hold him to," Hermione said, acidly. "As for Mr. Monroe —" she paused for a moment. "I can't stop you from bringing him in for questioning, but what you're doing is beginning to look a lot like harassment."

"We just want to get the facts, Madam Minister," Malfoy said, then bowed ever so slightly, turned, and walked out of her office.

Hermione sat at her desk for more than a minute, fingernails unconsciously clicking nervously on the polished oaken surface, before she made up her mind what to do about the situation. She took out her wand, murmured a number of spells at the door, then took a small paperweight from one of her desk drawers. Concentrating, she tapped it and softly said, "_Portus_." After all, being able to authorize your own Portkeys was a perk of the job…

**=ooo=**

It was the middle of the afternoon and Ginny Thomas was swamped. She had just gotten off the phone with an American CEO who wanted to discuss business with Mr. Potter-Evans-Verres, and he was _very_ upset that his calls were being ignored. Because Harry Potter-Evans-Verres was _never_ out of his office at this time of day, so he must be avoiding him.

Ginny had assured the man that Harry _was_ out of his office, but that he would call him back as _soon_ as he returned. _I hope_, she thought as she hung up the call. Right now she had no clue where Harry was, nor when he would be back. He had walked out about half-past noon, saying he would return in an hour or so.

That was more than three hours ago.

She sighed, resuming the paperwork she was behind on, hoping to get it completed before the office closed so she could go home and collapse. Let Dean make dinner tonight, she decided, or go for take-away — at this point even the enticement of dinner at Mary's Place couldn't drag her out and about this evening.

Coincidentally, at that moment, her iPhone jangled with the characteristic ringtone of _A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love _— Dean was calling her. She glanced around quickly — no one nearby, but she probably shouldn't risk any non-wizard seeing her. She picked up the phone and bolted into Harry's office.

Sitting down and setting the phone on Harry's desk, she took out her wand and tapped the phone three times in succession. Over the black glass front of the phone, a three-dimensional image of Dean Thomas's handsome face appeared. "Hello, love," he said, smiling at her.

"Hi," she said, a bit harried. "Dean, what is it — I've got a thousand things to get done before I go home —"

"Harry running you ragged?" her husband grinned. "I need to talk to —"

"No he's not here," Ginny cut him off. "I haven't seen him for hours now, and I don't know where he's at!"

"Hmm," Dean frowned. "He and I were supposed to have a meeting this afternoon, I thought he got delayed by business."

"I don't know where he's at," Ginny said again. "But —" she paused for a moment, remembering. "I think he was carrying something beneath his coat when he left. It might've been his Cloak."

"What would he need _that_ for?" Dean wondered, almost to himself.

"I don't know," Ginny said, exasperated. "But if he doesn't get back here soon I'm going to…I don't know what!"

"Oh, did you hear what happened over at the Ministry around lunchtime?" Dean suddenly asked. When Ginny shook her head no, he continued, "That Monroe character showed up there! There was a report Aurors were looking for him, and he turned himself in! But then it turned out that Minister Granger had signed a pardon for his Unregistered Wizard status, and had granted him citizenship in Britain! He walked out after 30 minutes or so a free man."

"They didn't hold him?" That didn't sound like Malfoy at all.

"My friend there said he was put in a holding cell for questioning, but it was only for a few minutes," Dean replied, happy to pass along the gossip, as well as being pleased to talk to his wife for more than a few seconds during the day. They rarely had a chance to communicate except for a few "texts" they sent using the Muggle wireless telephone devices she insisted they carry. There were no Floo connections in the TBC main offices, not even in Harry's office — they were hidden deeper in the building, where Muggles normally would never be allowed to go. Well, except for Monroe, Dean remembered, when Harry allowed him in his private dining room and, Dean suspected, in some places where no Muggle should have been allowed.

But now that was moot — Monroe had been revealed as a wizard posing as a Muggle, for reasons unknown, and Harry had seemed to take an unusual interest in the man. Dean blinked. Could it be that —

"Do you think Harry might be with Monroe now?" he wondered.

Ginny shrugged expressively. "I don't know, Dean. He could be." She shook her head. "I'm starting to think this Monroe character is someone Harry shouldn't associate with. He's getting too much attention from Malfoy. And my brothers —" she cut herself off abruptly.

"They what?" Dean prompted, intrigued by his wife's sudden silence.

Ginny spoke hesitatingly. "Well, Fred told me — I don't know this for sure, mind you! — but Fred said that they wondered if — somehow — um, Voldemort might have something to do with the strange goings-on lately."

Dean was staring at her through the iFloo connection like she'd suddenly grown another head. "You're shitting me, right?" he snorted.

Ginny threw up her hands. "That's what _they_ said, not me! But this Monroe character is acting pretty dodgy, don't you think? First he's a Muggle, then he's a wizard, then he's wanted by the Ministry, _then_ he's set free by them! Pretty strange if you ask me! I'm not sure if Harry should trust him at all."

But Dean had had another thought, one he knew Ginny would not want to hear. Still, it was worth pointing out for both their sakes.

"It is possible," he said, slowly, "that _Harry_ is the one luring Monroe into some kind of trap."

Ginny's reaction was predictable. "Dean, what the _hell_? After everything he's done for you — for the both of us? How many times do I have to tell you, Harry is _not going Dark_!"

It was a fear some of the people close to him still had. Almost from his first day at Hogwarts there had been signs — some subtle, some seemingly obvious, that Harry Potter was not your usual wizard. He had spent long minutes beneath the Sorting Hat, much longer than anyone at the school had ever seen before. That was traditionally a strong sign of a potential Dark Wizard. He was… frankly, _weird_ in a way no other wizard before him had been. Surreal situations seemed to crop up wherever he went. He was unable to cast a Patronus Charm, another definite sign of Darkness among the student body; the upper classmen had discussed it and its implications _ad nausem_ in their respective common rooms.

"I hope not," Dean retorted. "We've had a decent 25 years or so since he got rid of You-Know-Who."

Ginny snorted. "You can say his name, Dean — Voldemort. It's not like he's going to come back and bite you in the ass or something."

Dean shrugged dismissively. "Whatever. I need to get going, I've to get back to work. Will you be home in time to make dinner?"

"No," Ginny snapped. "Will _you_?"

"What, d'you want _me_ to make dinner, then?" Dean was annoyed now. This pleasant chat with Ginny had almost degenerated into a fight.

"Better than you drinking your dinner at the Leaky Cauldron," Ginny sniped, angry now. Dean's comment about Harry had gotten on her nerves.

"Fine," Dean said, closing down. "I'll have something ready when you get home." His image vanished.

Ginny snatched up the phone. "Arse," she muttered as she stalked back to her desk in the reception area. Maybe _she'd_ go have a bloody firewhiskey or three before she went home. See how _he_ liked being kept waiting for a change!

**=ooo=**

"Does this hat," Fred asked, appraising himself critically in the mirror, "make me look fat?"

"Definitely," George said, and Ron nodded, agreeing.

The three Weasley brothers were in their Product Development offices (otherwise known as the break room) at Weaselys' Wizard Wheezes, where they normally retired to in the afternoon to work on new items for the shop. Their wives were downstairs overseeing the retail section, as usual, giving each group a little "alone time" with each other, something that was usually needed by that time of day, after several hours together.

Fred turned around so he faced away from the mirror, staring over his shoulder at his very wide backside. He had to move his head from side to all of it in the mirror. He looked like he weighed 500 pounds.

"Good," Fred said, and swept the tall, pointed wizard's cap off his head. His rotund figure immediately melted away, return to his normal, (mostly) thin figure. "That oughta put quite a few birds off their feed, I reckon."

"As long as none of our wives put them on," George grinned.

"I told you it would work," Ron put in. The three Weasley brothers had been working on the Fat Hat for quite some time now, with limited success, until Ron had the idea of using an Extension Charm along with a carefully-modified Mapping Charm to alter a person's appearance without actually making them fatter using a Fattening Charm, which had undesirable side effects.

"You did tell us that," Fred agreed, with a wink directed toward his twin. "But you've been telling us that same thing for the past dozen modifications as well."

"I was homing in on the best solution," Ron muttered defensively.

"I'm glad we finally found our way home," George said brightly. He clapped Ron on the shoulder. "Well done!" Ron gave him a penetrating look.

"Well, it works," Ron retorted. "I suppose that's what matters, isn't it? And now we can start making them for the shop —" A beeping noise in Fred's pocket interrupted him.

Fred fished the beeping device out of his pocket. It was his iPhone. All of the Weasleys had iPhones — it was practically a necessary if they wanted to keep in touch with each other — and their wives and close friends — throughout the day.

It had also developed into a moneyspinner for them in the Wizarding community. Some years earlier, after Ginny had gone to work for Harry, she had shown them the small, handheld Muggle communication device, a "smart phone." Fred and George had studied it only a short while before realizing they had to get into this market as well.

With a few wizarding improvement tacked onto it, for that "Weasley" touch.

And so, at 92 Diagon Alley, a new shop had gone into business — Weasleys' Wireless Wonderland, a shop filled with Muggle electronic devices modified to work with magic. Normally, electricity and electronic devices did not work very well in a magical environment, but that was only for devices unprotected from magical influence. Within a year smart phones, MP3 players, and dozens of other devices wizards had been unable to use up to that time were flying off the Wireless Wonderland's shelves.

"It's Ginny," Fred said, after a moment. "She had a fight with Dean." It didn't occur to Fred not to tell his brothers; Ginny was important to them all, and what one of them knew, the others immediately knew as well.

At least, within reasonable boundaries.

Fred tapped the face of phone and said, "Ginny Thomas," then put the phone to his ear. "Hey," he said a few moments later. "What's up?"

It was several minutes before Fred spoke again, beyond an occasional "Uh huh," or "I see." George and Ron waited expectantly.

"Well," Fred finally said, a bit wearily, "you and Dean have been through some rough patches before, and you've always come through them." He listened for another minute or so, sparing a glance and shrug at his brothers before speaking again. "I'm sure you'll sort it out, Little Sister," he said. "What concerns me most is what Dean said about Harry."

"What did he say?" both George and Ron asked, at the same time. Fred put up a hand for silence.

"No, it doesn't seem reasonable," Fred went on. "We discussed that very possibility with him a few days ago. I don't know why Harry would even bring it up if he _himself_ was possessed by You-Know-Who."

Ron and George looked at one another. Ron had on an expression of vindication, as if to say, _I _knew_ something was going on with Harry_! but George was frowning skeptically. They'd known Harry too long for them not to notice if Harry was acting strangely. Or at least more strangely than normal.

"I don't know," Fred was saying. "Maybe she had errands to run. Yes, I know she's the bloody Minister, Sis! That doesn't mean she's always going to send someone else! Alright, then, talk to you later. Maybe we can go for dinner sometime? Right, bye then." Fred put the phone away and looked at his brothers.

"Ginny was upset that Dean thought Harry might be luring that Monroe bloke into a trap, rather than the other way round," he explained. "But I dunno why Harry would even bring up the idea that You-Know-Who was back if he was the one possessed by him."

"To throw suspicion off him," Ron said immediately. Harry had talked about Quirinus Quirrell, but virtually everyone in the Wizarding world knew who Quirrell had really been. "He might _want_ us to think there's some connection between Monroe and Quirrell."

"What about Hermione?" George asked Fred, ignoring Ron. "Did Ginny try and contact her?"

"Yeah," Fred said, "before she called me, but Hermione didn't answer her phone. Ginny called the Ministry but they said the Minister wasn't taking calls. She thinks they're covering for her, that she's not even there but no one wants to admit it."

"She's probably out somewhere trying to figure out how to cover Harry's arse," Ron muttered.

Fred and George both sighed. "We know you don't like Harry much," either one of them said. "But you're being silly about this, Ron. Harry did a lot more for Wizarding Britain in his first year at school that you've done in the past twenty-five."

Ron shook his head angrily. "You're both just Potter's fanboys! Don't you realize he's got a stranglehold on us — and on everyone else here in Diagon Alley! He's bleeding us dry!"

"Merlin's beard, Ron," Fred said, exasperated. "That's just bloody Malfoy propaganda! He's just pissed that Harry's made more money using Muggle methods than his family ever did in the Wizarding community! You don't really buy into that crap Malfoy spews, do you?"

"No more than _you_ buy into what Potter spews!" Ron growled in reply. "I'm going to get some air," he announced, then spun on his heel and stomped out of the room and down the stairs. Neither Fred nor George threw a parting jibe after him, which somehow annoyed Ron even more, and he didn't look at any of the Weasley wives as he strode through the retain area of the store.

He didn't even at look at Luna, who said, "Dinner tonight at seven, dear?" as he passed her in the Joke Eyewear aisle. Luna had put on a pair of Ecto-Specs, joke eyeglasses that made people invisible to the wearer. Ron wondered vaguely how she'd known it was him if he was invisible to her.

At the door, however, he paused, turned his head halfway toward her and muttered, "I'll be there," before leaving.

Several people waved at or said hello to Ron as he walked down Diagon Alley. Ron nodded curtly or muttered in return, not wanting to be drawn in idle chit-chat; his mood was too foul to put up with any pleasantries.

His brothers! Ron could see how they'd been drawn in by Potter, even as far back as Hogwarts, even that very first day, when they and Lee Jordan had come up with some farcical song in Harry's honor, and had sung it as he had gone up to be Sorted. Ron imagined they were trying, in some subtle way, to get Harry to join Gryffindor. Merlin, what a disaster that would have been!

But Potter had gone to Ravenclaw, thankfully, and Ron had been spared having to bunk with him. The Ravenclaws were all a bunch of do-nothings, anyway — they preferred thinking to acting. Though there had been a bad moment, Ron remembered, when after the long, long time the Sorting Hat had sat upon Potter's head it had suddenly sang out, "Slytherin!"

Harry Potter in Slytherin? Maybe the Hat had been right, Ron pondered — it had probably spent all the time it sat on Harry's head trying to convince him that was where he belonged. Ron could really believe that.

But something had happened a moment later, and the Hat changed its mind, somehow, adding, "Just kidding! Ravenclaw!" Ron had no doubt, at this moment, that somehow Potter had made the Hat say that in order to hide his true intentions. Everyone knew that the worst Dark Lords came from Slytherin. From Ravenclaw, not so much. Ron couldn't even think of a Dark Lord who had come from Ravenclaw, in fact. Which was not surprising, really; Ron had never heard of confirmatory bias, either.

But no matter what his brothers thought, no matter what _Ginny_ thought, Ron had decided to expose Harry Potter for the fraud he was, expose whatever designs he had for the ruin of Wizarding Britain, whatever the dark plans that Muggle company of his, TBC Enterprises, had for Muggles. He would show the Wizarding world, somehow, that Harry Potter was not the hero everyone thought he was. And Ron had a pretty good idea where to start…

**=ooo=**

"We're getting off the topic," Harry said. "We were talking about tests to locate the Source of Magic. I've been trying to locate it for decades, but if you have any ideas how I can improve my tests, I want to hear them."

"Offhand, I can't think of anything," Monroe admitted, "but I'm not sure I agree with the conclusions you've reached from your data." His face split in a wry grin. "Shall we look at them one by one, in decreasing order of absurdity?"

Harry blinked. "Why certainly," he said, his voice laden with sarcasm. "Let's do that, shall we? Which one would you like to start with?"

"The FTL theory," Monroe answered immediately. "You explained why you liked that idea, but I think your results are inconsistent with that conclusion."

"Why do you say that?" Harry prompted.

"Because you got a pretty constant 19 to 22 millisecond delay between the spell's casting and the spell energy's emergence from your wand," Monroe explained. "Why should there be that much delay, always, for a force that propagates at some rate above _c_?"

"I theorized that the Source had to interpret the command, and that such interpretation would take about that long to process." Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Now that he said it aloud, that didn't seem quite as reasonable as he'd originally thought.

Monroe saw why right away. "Why always 19 to 22 milliseconds? If the Source of Magic is interpreting your spell commands, why can't it do so at FTL speeds as well?"

Harry grimaced. "Maybe because the Source of Magic wasn't designed to work at those speeds itself?"

Monroe laughed. "That sounds like a pretty lousy design, then! Whoever supposedly designed this Source of Magic decided _not_ to use the superluminal speed of magic for the source itself? Come on, Harry! I think you want that theory to be true just a little too much to be objective about it."

"_Or_," Harry countered, stubbornly, "the Source may have been designed before it was understood that magic could propagate at faster-than-light speeds."

Monroe frowned. "That's muddy thinking. If magic can propagate at faster than light speeds naturally, then there would have been no need to add that in a design.

"We're getting nowhere on this point," Monroe continued. "We need a more definitive test."

"I agree," Harry replied. "Alright, we'll table the propagation question for now. What about my other theories?"

"You only have one other theory," Monroe corrected him. "The question is, where is the Source of Magic at — somewhere on the Earth, or perhaps in the Moon? With a delay of around 19 to 22 milliseconds, I would guess somewhere on Earth."

"Because you think magic travels at the speed of light?" Harry added.

"Or slower," Monroe suggested. "But I'm inclined to think light speed, to be honest. And given that light travels at about 300,000 kilometers per second, with a 19 millisecond delay, total distance traveled would be about 5700 kilometers, or a round trip of about 2850 kilometers and back, plus a 1 to 3 millisecond delay at the Source for interpretation.

"What inside the Earth is always about 2850 kilometers away from its surface?" Monroe prompted.

"I see what you're suggesting," Harry nodded. "The core of the Earth begins around 2800 to 2900 kilometers below the surface. But if that's true, the Source of Magic would be enormous — and not something that was designed."

"I had issues with that part of your theory as well," Monroe told Harry. "Even if Atlantean wizards were able to make far greater use of the Source of Magic than we can today, especially with the Interdict of Merlin in place, I don't think they would have been able to design it."

"But then _why_ are our spells so simple for such complex results?" Harry argued. "Why do we have to say something silly like 'Wingardium Leviosa' to make something float? We're just pushing buttons with phrases like that, not writing spell code! It seems like we're getting into a 'chicken-and-the-egg' situation — if the Source of Magic wasn't designed by wizards, why are our spells so much less complicated than they would have to be to build a spell from scratch?"

"I have to agree with you," Monroe said, rubbing his temples wearily. "But I don't think we'll know without doing more tests. It seems like you've been concentrating more on how to deal with the Interdict of Merlin than figuring out where magic itself comes from."

Harry nodded. "I think the Interdict is the biggest barrier to any further advances in understanding magic," he said. "Unfortunately that's had me up against the wall for a few years now —"

A knock at the door made both of them turn toward it. Harry glanced at his watch. It was about twenty minutes before five — almost time for them to vacate Mary's Room for the next reservation. Harry drew his wand and waved it at the door, canceling his protection spells and undoing the bolt on the door.

"We're almost done," he said, as the door began to swing open. "Just give us a minute —"

"Harry Potter-Evans-Verre-Granger," a familiar voice said, as the door swung aside, revealing the figure of Hermione Granger-Potter-Evans-Verres, frowning furiously at him. "You are in _so_ much trouble."


	12. Busted!

**.**

**Chapter Twelve**

**Busted!**

**Updated 5/4/2012**

"_You're going to tell me exactly what's going on with you and Mr. Monroe.__"_

**=ooo=**

Harry smiled despite the expression on Hermione's face. "Hello, love. Fancy meeting you here…"

Hermione moved stiffly into the room, then pointed a finger commandingly at the door, which hurriedly slammed shut and engaged the bolt. "Don't give me that 'love' stuff, Harry. What's _wrong_ with you? Are you _trying_ to make things more difficult for me at the Ministry?"

"What's going on?" Harry asked, a look of wide-eyed innocence on his face. On the opposite side of the room, Monroe glanced around uncomfortably, afraid that _whatever_ had happened, he was going to be dragged into it.

"You know bloody well what's going on," Hermione said, in a calm but angry tone. "You've got Malfoy up in arms at you again, and I suspect he'll be here any moment to try and pick up Mr. Monroe as some kind of retaliation."

"What for _now_?" Monroe blurted, unable to hold back.

Hermione looked at him. "There are apparently allegations that you may have some connection to the Dark Lord."

Harry laughed. "Hell, I accused him of that a few days ago at the Weasleys' shop! Malfoy's just using that as an excuse to harass Monroe!"

Hermione frowned momentarily at that. Had Malfoy somehow found out about that conversation? It didn't seem likely — the Weasleys warded their premises and homes more tightly than even Mary's Room was protected. Maybe he'd gotten a tip. She suddenly shrugged, remembering not to let Harry distract her.

"That doesn't matter," Hermione waved a hand dismissively. "He's got the legal right to follow up any leads he has dealing with Dark agents, including dead ones like Voldemort."

"Does he have the right to put Trace spells on wizards before such information comes to light?" Monroe asked. Both Hermione and Harry looked at him sharply.

"What does that mean?" Hermione asked.

"We think Malfoy put a trace spell on Monroe when he was being held at the Ministry earlier," Harry said shortly, not happy that Monroe had mentioned that in front of Hermione, who would likely press the issue with Malfoy if he showed up at Mary's Place. And thinking of that…

"We probably need to leave here anyway," Harry said. "They have to prepare this room for the next customer."

"No they don't," Hermione said. "I spoke to the owner when I first got here. I told her you were expecting me but that I'd been held up at work." Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. "She seemed to think you were expecting Draco Malfoy," she said, giving Harry a suspicious look. "I wonder why she would think that?"

"Because I told her that," Harry replied at once. "Malfoy doesn't want anyone in Diagon Alley thinking he and I are in cahoots — telling Mary that I was meeting Malfoy here make him look bad in front of all his 'fans' here."

"Yes," Hermione agreed. "And it also pissed him off, obviously, and he's decided to take it out on Monroe."

"He wouldn't even know Harry said that unless he had a trace spell on me," Monroe spoke up.

Hermione looked thoughtful for a moment. "What did he tell you before he sent you up to my office?"

"He said you'd granted me citizenship status retroactive to my entry in England five years ago, and that I was free to leave," Monroe answered.

Harry had a gleeful look on his face. "If he'd had any evidence that you were working for Voldemort," he said, grinning, "he'd have invoked it then!"

At that moment there was a pounding on the door. "Ministry Aurors!" a voice outside shouted; it sounded like Vincent Crabbe. "Open up or we'll break the door down!"

"Right on time," Harry smirked. He slid the bolt aside and opened the door. Outside were Crabbe, Goyle and behind them, Malfoy himself. "Why Draco," Harry said, feigning surprise. "What are you doing _here_?"

"As if you didn't know," Draco growled. He fluttered his hands at Crabbe and Goyle, waving them out of his way, then walked into the room.

"What d'you want us to do, Boss —" Crabbe asked, but the door slammed shut on them.

"Come here to warn your husband he might be implicated in a Dark conspiracy?" Draco spoke first to the Minister.

"Don't be ridiculous, Draco," Hermione replied, sounding offended. "I came here to find out what's provoked this latest round of feuding between the two of you, and what Mr. Monroe's got to do with it!"

"I already told you what we suspect," Draco answered smoothly. "That Mr. Monroe has some connection to the Dark Lord."

There were various reactions in the room to this statement. Monroe shook his head in disgust; Harry merely smiled thinly to himself.

It was Hermione, however, who responded first. "Yes, and you refused to divulge your sources or any other information about that suspicion, citing an 'ongoing investigation' into the matter. May I presume that you have learned nothing more concrete since earlier this afternoon?"

"It's still ongoing," Draco agreed. In point of fact, they had no such information on Monroe; it had been a ploy to get Monroe back into the Ministry after he and Harry had found a way to circumvent the Trace that Malfoy had put on Monroe while he was in their custody earlier today, so that he could overhear any conversations Monroe had with anyone. It was why he'd brought Crabbe and Goyle along — to take Monroe into custody so he could use Veritaserum on him and find out what he and Harry had discussed that Draco had been unable to understand.

And Hermione being here was just icing on the cake; if Monroe and Potter had been plotting anything the least bit underhanded, her presence here would make it seem like she was in on it as well, weakening her position in the eyes of the Wizengamot. Only the Chief Warlock would still be staunchly on her side, as he had always been, but even his support couldn't override Lord Malfoy's influence in the Most Ancient Hall of the wizards' court.

"So why didn't you hold him when he was at the Ministry earlier today?" Hermione asked sharply. "You told me afterward we released Monroe that some new information about Voldemort —" Draco frowned at her use of The Name "— had come to light. You said you wanted the chance to ask Monroe some questions — why didn't you tell me that while he was there, instead of waiting until after he'd been let go?"

"The information only came to light shortly after we released Monroe," Draco answered, his tone as smooth as it had been before.

"How did it come to you?" Hermione persisted. "From one of your Aurors? Was it anonymous?"

Draco saw the trap she was setting — if he said one of his Aurors had brought it to him she would demand he be questioned under Veritaserum, and there was no time for him to prepare someone for that. He couldn't say it was Crabbe or Goyle — as his "personal assistants" as well as Aurors anything they said would be suspect. "It was anonymous," he said immediately.

"So you are in the process of verifying that information?" Hermione asked, arching an eyebrow at him. Harry's smile got a fraction broader — he'd already figured out where she was going with these questions. She'd used the technique on him often enough. Fortunately, he'd always been prepared for it.

"Of course," Draco nodded, making his reply sound like that should have been obvious. But there was a cold shiver running down his spine — he _knew_ what she'd say next —

"Then you don't yet have sufficient cause to bring him in for questioning," Hermione pointed out, exactly as he'd expected. Behind the veneer of his confident expression, Draco grimaced, silently damning the woman for these completely ludicrous reforms to their law enforcement system.

"I didn't want to give him the opportunity to escape," Draco replied, the only thing he could reasonably say at this point.

The Minister raised her hands, gesturing at the room they were in. "It doesn't look like he was running, Draco, if he's been having lunch here with Harry, as you told me."

"And I wonder how he knew that?" Monroe put in. "Since I entered this restaurant invisibly and Harry never mentioned he was having lunch with me."

_Shit_, Draco thought.

Hermione nodded knowingly. "Yes, I've been meaning to get to that. Draco, how _did_ you know to tell me that Harry was having lunch with Mr. Monroe, earlier today?"

There was only one answer Draco could give. "I watched Monroe as he left through the visitor's entrance. He was speaking to someone though no one else was around. I suspected it was Harry since Monroe called his name."

"You weren't in the booth with him when Monroe left, were you?" Hermione asked. "Even if you were Disillusioned, I don't think Mr. Monroe would have failed to notice someone in there with him."

"There was no one in the booth with me," Monroe answered before Draco could say anything. "I checked around inside it while it was taking me up to the street — in case someone _was_ in there with me."

Draco hadn't wanted to admit this, but — "There's a camera installed in the booth," he said. "I had them mounted in the Atrium and other key locations in the Ministry, including the visitor's booth, when I became Head Auror."

"And how is it _I _am not aware of that?" Hermione asked, archly. "I should have had to approve the cost of installing those cameras."

"I used my own gold," Draco said. "It was considered a personal expenditure — completely legal at the time." In fact, Draco had known that Hermione was working to change the policy on making personal modifications to one's office or business area — she wanted _all_ modifications to go through the Ministry for approval, not just governmental upgrades, which were few and far between. Draco had the miniature magical cameras installed just before the policy changes went into effect. They had been his private eyes into the goings-on at the Ministry. He just wished he'd spent the extra gold and gotten the cameras with audio capability as well!

"You must've purchased those from the Weasleys," Harry said, enjoying himself very much. "Were they the kind with audio capability, or the cheaper models?"

Malfoy glared at Harry, then said reluctantly, "Non-audio."

"Then how could you have heard Monroe call Harry's name?" Hermione asked.

"I never said I _heard_ him," Draco pointed out. "I saw his mouth move. I have a recording of him leaving the booth." Draco did not bother to point out that he'd only watched the video after the fact, that he had heard Monroe say Harry's name by other means, means he had no desire to divulge.

"And when did I say Harry and I were going to Mary's Place?" Monroe asked, accusingly. "The Minister said a minute ago that you told her that's where Harry and I were."

"It was a lucky guess on my part," Draco said. "It's the most secure place in Diagon Alley if you want to discuss something without being overheard."

"But not the most secure place in London, as you know," Harry put in. "That would be my offices and private residence at the TBC Building. _That's_ where you should have expected me to go, if I didn't really want you to overhear anything between me and Monroe."

"That's a good point," Hermione said, turning to Draco. "So how did you know Harry and Monroe were here?"

"Because he —" Monroe began, but both Hermione and Harry put up their hands, stopping him from speaking further.

"Well, Draco?" Hermione prompted, when Malfoy didn't reply. "Do I have to have Crabbe and Goyle put under Veritaserum before you'll admit you put a trace program on Mr. Monroe?"

Inwardly, Draco was furious, but mostly with himself — he'd _had_ to mention to Granger that her husband was meeting with Monroe, he couldn't resist rubbing that in her face; that, and the bit about Monroe's supposed connection with the Dark Lord, a connection he had not a shred of evidence to support. "I thought it would be a good contingency plan," he finally said. "In case Monroe tried to leave town."

"Why would I do _that_?" Monroe asked, in a tone of incredulity. "I've just been pardoned for being in Britain illegally, even though I had no idea I was until a few days ago!"

"I'll overlook what you've done, Draco," Hermione told him. "If you remove the trace immediately and promise you won't use it again without executive approval."

"And if I refuse?" Draco asked, stiffly, wondering to himself if his father could swing the votes in the Wizengamot to have him exonerated — and if his father would even try. Lucius Malfoy did not value failure these days, not even a relatively minor failure by his only son and heir to his title.

"Then I will bring up the matter to the Chief Warlock," Hermione said, in an icy tone. He may move to have House Malfoy shunned by the other Ancient Houses."

Malfoy stared at her in disbelief. "You would not dare!" he said, though his voice could barely manage more than a whisper, so shocked was he by this move on her part. "House Malfoy is one of the most Ancient and Noble Houses in Wizarding Britain!"

"All the more important that you should comport yourself as Head Auror with more regard for the law," Hermione replied, her tone still icy. "If the Wizengamot should learn that you have such a spell in your possession, they may begin to wonder whether it could ever be used on _them_."

No one spoke for what seemed like a long time. Finally, Draco reached inside his robe and drew out his wand. "Does everyone here agree that no mention will be made of the trace spell to anyone outside this room?"

"Yes," Harry and Hermione both said, then looked at Monroe.

Monroe sighed. "Yes," he said as well.

"Very well," Draco nodded and pointed his wand at Monroe, making a complex series of wand motions as he muttered the cancellation spell under his breath. "I presume you trust that I've removed it," he said as his wand disappeared back into his robe. "Given that there is no known detection spell that can find it, anyway."

"I'm working on it," Harry said, cheerfully, earning a sharp look from both Draco and Hermione, for different reasons. He stepped over to the door. "And now, Draco, have a pleasant day," he said, opening it and gesturing for Malfoy to leave.

Without a word Draco turned and walked out through the door. "What now, Boss?" they heard Crabbe ask as Harry began to shut the door.

"Shut it," Draco replied, his voice a low snarl. "Let's get back —" then the door closed and any voices from the outside were cut off.

"Well, that's that," Harry said, looking back at Hermione and Monroe. "I guess we can be going as well —"

"Hold on, buster," Hermione stopped him. "You're not getting off that easy this time. You're going to tell me exactly what's going on with you and Mr. Monroe."

**=ooo=**

Draco Malfoy strode from Mary's Place and toward the exit of Diagon Alley in a black rage, though his outward expression remained impassive. He had dearly wanted to escort someone back to the Ministry to show the merchants and customers here that he was working for their benefit, taking care of their needs.

Instead, it was only him and two Aurors who made their way back to the Leaky Cauldron, empty-handed and barely having avoided public disgrace. But no one here could know that, of course, so Draco nodded, with a thin but cordial smile, to the shopkeepers and vendors who hailed or waved at him, even as his two bodyguards waved away anyone who moved to greet him. Crabbe and Goyle were a step behind him, maintaining silence as he'd ordered.

The Leaky Cauldron went dead silent as they entered from the courtyard, and Draco felt the pressure of many eyes upon him as he passed through the inn without a word. Even before they reached the front door, the whispers began. At the door Draco stopped, looking back at them; the whispers immediately stopped. He turned and opened the door then strode out into the street.

Once outside on Charing Cross Road, he and his men vanished, reappearing perhaps a quarter-mile distant at his private entrance to the Ministry, a fish and chip shop, long abandoned. Draco had arranged this entrance when he had become Head Auror; only he, Crabbe and Goyle were aware of its existence.

The door was locked and bolted, but at the touch of his hand the bolt slid aside and the door swung open for him. They passed inside, through the long-unused shop and into a narrow hallway leading to two doors, one marked BLOKES and the other BINTS. Draco had seen restrooms signed like this in some Muggle restaurant years ago and thought they were funny.

Crabbe and Goyle followed Draco through the BLOKES door, which led into a lavatory with three stalls in it. Each stall had a handle and a coin box which read, Please Deposit One Pound. Draco stepped in front of the first stall, Crabbe the next one, and Goyle the last. In unison they took out their wands and tapped the coin box in front of them, each of which made a _clack_ as the doors swung inward. Inside each stall was a capped flange and no toilet. Ignoring this, Draco stepped toward the tile wall, passing through it just as one did through the barrier between Kings Cross Station and Platform 9¾.

On the other side of the wall was a comfortable room, brightly lighted by a glowing ceiling and furnished with a leather recliner, a table with a tea set and several boxes of Earl Grey tea, and across the room, a stone fireplace with a finely carved mahogany mantle.

Draco was tempted to send Crabbe and Goyle on ahead, and spend a while in this room, his "quiet room," brooding, but he could do that just as well in his office. He took a pinch of Floo powder from a bowl on the mantle, tossed it into the hearth, which burst into green flames, then said, "Ministry of Magic!" and stepped into the flames.

A few moments later he stepped out of a fireplace in the Atrium, turned, and strode toward the golden elevators; Crabbe and Goyle appeared behind him, from the flames and were hard on his heels. The lift stopped at level two and the three men got off, walking down the short hallway to where the main offices of the Auror Department were located. Draco walked to his office, Crabbe and Goyle still at his heels; they probably expected to follow him into his office where he would reprimand them for letting the Potter/Monroe situation get out of control.

Instead, Draco merely said, "Go write your reports for today. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

The two men looked at one another, hiding their expressions of relief, then turned and left. Draco entered his office, tapped the doorknob with his wand to lock it, and sat down at his desk to brood over the day's events and begin plotting for tomorrow.

Reaming out Crabbe and Goyle might have made him feel better momentarily, but if there was anyone to blame for this debacle it was him, not them. He was being too reactive, not thinking far enough ahead in this private little war with Harry Potter. In truth, it was more than a game than a real war; somehow a war with Harry had never seemed like a good idea to Draco. However his father, Lord Malfoy, took the conflict with Harry seriously, and had done so ever since he'd learned that Harry had been trying to bring Draco over to the Light side. But Draco had been playing that game with Harry, not his father — he'd wanted the chance to win it himself, and get Harry to embrace his Darkness! But Father had explained again about Dumbledore's ways, and what he'd done to his mother and Father's wife, and Draco had tearfully agreed, all those years ago, not to engage Harry in future plots or manipulations without apprising him of his plans. Draco would not have been allowed to return to Hogwarts otherwise.

But that was many years ago, when he was a child and didn't know any better. Today his father let him fight his own battles; in fact, he insisted on it, for how else would Draco earn the title he would inherit one day: Draco, Lord Malfoy of the Most Ancient and Noble House.

At that moment Draco's eye fell on a parchment envelope that was lying out of place on his desk. He had been so distracted when he sat down that he hadn't noticed it.

Draco picked up the envelope. It was addressed to "Head Auror Malfoy" in a vaguely familiar handwriting, something Draco felt like he'd seen before. There was no wax seal on the back, but the flap refused to budge when he tried to open it — there must be a Sticking Charm on it. He pointed his wand at it and muttered, "_Finite Incantatem_," but even that didn't break the charm. After a couple more tries Draco gave up and used a Severing Charm on the side of the envelope. The letter inside was written in the same familiar script, in very straight, ordered lines on the parchment. Draco read,

To Head Auror Malfoy,

I and other like-minded folks in Wizarding Britain applaud your efforts to keep Diagon Alley a place where witches and wizards are free to shop and to ply their trades without unnecessary taxation and manipulation by greedy Muggle-loving capitalists like Harry Potter.

We have come too far in the Wizarding World to allow anyone to exert their monetary influence over us, and at the same time put us at such risk with the possibility of the return of You-Know-Who.

There have been rumors circulating throughout Diagon Alley and other places where wizards gather that Harry Potter has been talking to a wizard who was posing as a Muggle for several years before making his true presence known in our community. It is also believed that this wizard may be controlled somehow by the Dark Lord, even though he is supposed to be long-dead.

We urge you to take these rumors seriously – no one wants a return to the conflicts and terror of the 1970's,when You-Know-Who ravened about the Wizarding World, terrorizing and murdering any who stood against him. Even if You-Know-Who is truly dead, it would not stop an enterprising wizard from creating circumstances that would make it seem like he was alive.

Sincerely yours,

A concerned citizen

Draco stared at this letter for several minutes, both at the content and the writing itself. Who would write him such a letter? The writing was too regular to be normal handwriting; thus, it was probably done with a Quotes Quill. The comments about Diagon Alley led him to believe it was someone there who knew of his efforts to neutralize Harry Potter's influence there, and seemed to approve of it.

The other aspect of the letter — the references to the Dark Lord — were more interesting. The prospect of the Dark Lord returning now was unsettling, but so was the idea that Potter might fake his return in order to regain the power he once held over the Wizarding World. Assuming that the Dark Lord _was_ dead for once and all, it would be a brilliant stroke to fake his return!

Taking out his wand, Draco tapped a box sitting on the corner of his desk. "Where did this letter on my desk come from?" he asked without preamble.

"It was a standard owl-post delivery, sir," his executive assistant responded a moment later. "I logged it in at…10:32 this morning. The owl was from the Diagon Alley Owl Office."

"Okay," Draco said, and tapped the box again, severing the connection. It was a handy little device, that box, something his assistant had presented him with shortly after she'd gone to work for him. She had pointed out that it would save time with her not having to constantly come in his office when he called for her. The news had spread and soon all the department heads and undersecretaries had them on their desks as well, replacing most of the parchment airplanes that had been in use for many years before. Draco had to admit they were handy little devices, especially since you could also connect them to any other box, not just the boxes they were keyed to by default.

It had galled him, though, that all of these boxes had come from Weasleys' Wireless Wonderland, spinning money for those, those — _people_, Draco thought savagely. He stared at the box broodingly, contemplating whether he'd feel better if he blasted it with his wand.

But, no — he'd just have to buy another one, filling the Weasley coffers even more, which was not a part of his plans for today. He picked up the letter again, contemplating how he might figure out who —

Draco stopped, staring at the writing on the letter. That writing _was_ familiar to him! He spun around, reaching toward a book on the bookshelves behind his desk. The book was thin but well-bound, with the words Quotes Quills Samples along the side. Opening it toward the end of the book, Draco began comparing the writing samples in the book to the writing on the letter.

"Let's see," Draco muttered as he scanned the writings in the book. "Quote Quill, Fred Weasley, purchased 10 April 2012…no. Fred Weasley, purchased 27 August 2014, no. George Weasley, purchased 30 September 2009, hmm, no. Ron Weasley, purchased 15 April 2013 — aha! Got you!"

It was not an exact match, but it was very close, Draco decided. The Ministry kept track of Quote Quills, which were routinely used to write otherwise anonymous letters. Of course, this did not mean that Ron Weasley _himself_ used the Quote Quill that wrote this letter, but it seemed fairly certain that he had enchanted the quill that did.

But added with the other clues in the letter, Draco suspected the youngest Weasley son _had_ written the letter and sent it off to the Ministry using the Diagon Alley post office. Why he might have done so, and the reasons he might have to implicate Harry Potter in a plot to have You-Know-Who return, whether the Dark Lord was truly resurrected or resurrected in name only, was something Draco intended to find out.

**=ooo=**

After Malfoy left the room with his goon squad, Hermione produced her wand, waved the bolt shut, then spoke an even dozen wards — several of her own creation and more than enough to ensure that no one outside the room would be privy to anything that went on in the room.

"There," she said with grim satisfaction. "_Now_, Harry — you've been acting quite strangely since your birthday this Monday past — that is, more strangely than usual," she added, as Harry gave her a wry grin. "And I want to know why. Now."

"Aren't you hungry?" Harry remarked casually, sitting down at the table. "I thought you might at least want to order something before you locked us away in here."

"The server will take our orders at six p.m., which is in —" Hermione glanced at her watch "— forty-eight minutes. That should be enough time for you to explain what you and Mr. Monroe have been up to this week."

"Nothing much, really," Harry said, though he did not — quite — meet her eyes as he said it. "We've just been kicking around a few ideas over the past day or two."

"Before Draco showed up you said you'd accused Mr. Monroe of being Voldemort," Hermione reminded him, sounding severe. "Is that one of the ideas you've been 'kicking around'?"

Harry waved a hand airily. "That was just a momentary glitch, before I realized that James knows quite a bit about magic — and well, he'd beat me at a duel…"

"He _did_?" Hermione's eyes widened in surprise; she looked at Monroe in wonderment. "That must've been something to see! The great Harry Potter-Evans-Verres-Granger defeated in a duel!" She smiled wickedly.

"I got in a lucky shot," Monroe offered. "It was not that big a deal."

"That's what _I_ thought," Harry muttered plaintively.

Hermione's expression had become stern again. "But that doesn't tell me what you're doing _now_," she reminded him. "Here you are, locked away in one of the most magically secure places in Britain, with the Head Auror breathing down your necks — you can see where I might think you're doing more here than discussing the latest issue of _Duellists Quarterly_."

"Well," Harry murmured, "fair enough. If you must know, love, Monroe and I have been talking about…the Singularity."

"Oh." Hermione rolled her eyes expressively. "_That_." She put her hand over her face, shaking her head in exasperation. "Harry, you and I covered this in detail a long time ago. Such a thing is never going to happen."

"Actually," Monroe interrupted. "It's nearly inevitable, with progress occurring at an exponential rate."

"Harry tried to tell me that, too," Hermione replied, folding her arms. "But then we researched how often new spells were being created over the past few centuries, and the progression is linear — in fact, it almost looked logarithmic, like it was slowly leveling off."

Monroe frowned at them. "But _Muggle_ progress is occurring exponentially! Magic should show the same trend, even if it's slower."

"The Interdict of Merlin," Harry muttered. "That's what's causing the rate of progress to slow down."

"But wizards _are_ creating new spells, Harry!" Hermione objected. "The Interdict only keeps spells above a certain level of power from being understood by anyone other than the inventor of a new spell — it doesn't limit the creation of powerful spells!"

"Yes," Harry agreed, reluctantly. "But once a spell is lost to the Interdict, it can't be reinvented by anyone — that is what's causing the amount of magical knowledge gained in the world per unit of time to slowly move towards zero."

"But not to actually reach zero," Hermione pointed out. "That's what you're trying to imply."

"No, I'm _not_!" Harry insisted. "What I'm trying to make you understand is that unless we do something about the Interdict, that eventually Muggle technology, progressing exponentially, will outstrip magic and that if a Singularity occurs, it will be technological rather than magical!"

"But that assumes that Muggle technology _is_ progressing exponentially now," Hermione argued, glancing at Monroe. "Has anyone _proved_ that's really the case?"

"Yes," Monroe nodded. "Ray Kurzweil proved it over a decade ago in a book he wrote called _The Singularity is Near_. His theory on the idea, called the 'Law of Accelerating Returns,' was built on the works of earlier scientists who perceived that progress would eventually lead mankind to become post-industrial, post-scarcity, and deathless."

"Deathless?" Hermione looked faintly worried at that. "Isn't that what Voldemort wanted primarily for himself?"

"It is," Harry admitted. "But the difference is that the Singularity — whether we're talking technological or magical — is to free people from the limitations of aging, illness, and death. Nobody really wants to die."

Hermione was shaking her head. "I've known people who've wanted to die, Harry — not because they were sick of living, but because they wanted to experience what happens beyond the physical world."

"Nothing happens beyond the physical world," Harry said, deliberately lowering his voice to avoid sounding angry at his wife. "Dumbledore believed there was an afterlife, and thought that anyone who didn't want to experience it was a borderline Dark personality, but I think he was just rationalizing what happened to his family back when he was in school. There is no evidence that a soul exists."

"None that you accept, anyway," Hermione said, archly. "That doesn't make you _right_."

"It doesn't make me _wrong_, either," Harry argued. "But any way you look at it, reasonable evidence suggests that souls do not exist."

"Then what about —" Hermione cut herself off suddenly, glancing toward Monroe. "Well, about you-know-what."

"Monroe knows about Horcruxes," Harry told her. "And I haven't studied them enough to determine whether they hold a fragment of your soul or what. What I think is, they hold a copy of your brain patterns, a copy that can still think and somehow act on the external world."

"Sounds like you don't have any real evidence to back that up," Hermione said, sounding smug. "Or would you like to present some now?"

Harry said nothing, and merely shook his head. "Didn't think so," Hermione sniffed.

What Hermione didn't know, and what Harry would never tell her, was the information he _did_ have on Horcruxes, information he'd taken from Quirrell-Voldemort's mind before he died. Voldemort's return in his own physical body had been precluded by the actions of men like Severus Snape and Alastor Moody, who had made sure that none of his remains could be used to perform the ritual that would have restored him to full vigor.

But no such precautions had been made for _Quirrell's_ body — when he was destroyed the first time it was discovered that his parent's graves were no longer in the cemetery where they'd been interred, and the substantial efforts undertaken by Order of the Phoenix members to find them had availed for naught. It had taken six long years for "Quirrellmort" to return from death, just as Harry and Dumbledore had found and destroyed the last of the Horcruxes he'd created.

Then Dumbledore had died fighting the resurrected Quirrell, hoping to weaken him enough for Harry to defeat him, and after the Headmaster had fallen Harry had indeed taken up the battle, fighting Quirrell for most of a day before the former Defense professor fell to the Elder Wand, the wand that Harry had won from Dumbledore without knowing its true nature.

But no one other than Harry, Dumbledore, and the man who had become the Chief Warlock after the Headmaster's death knew the truth about Quirrell. And no one ever could; at least not until Harry could find a way to break the Interdict's stranglehold on progress in Magical Britain.

"Then maybe," Harry said, quietly, "we should find out, once and for all, whether souls exist or not."


	13. Do Souls Exist?

**Chapter Thirteen  
><strong>**Do Souls Exist?**

Updated 5/19/2012  
>Updated 125/2013

=ooo=

"Harry!" Hermione shook her head disbelievingly. "You can't prove something like that true!"

"Really?" Now it was Harry's turn to fold his arms skeptically. "Why not?"

"Because —" his wife paused to consider how she should approach the claim. "Because it's — well, it's…metaphysical. There is no way to measure or quantify a soul."

"But Dark wizards supposedly trap a portion of their soul inside an object, creating a Horcrux," Harry replied. "How do they know if they've succeeded?"

"Because the Horcrux becomes nearly indestructible," Hermione answered. "The only way to destroy one is with basilisk venom or Fiendfyre."

"There is also a rumor that steeping a Horcrux in the blood of a unicorn will destroy it," Monroe added. "But no one has ever tried to prove that — wizards are normally afraid that killing a unicorn will bring a curse down upon them for the rest of their life, which won't be long because they've slain something so pure and good."

"That doesn't prove there's a bit of soul in there," Harry pointed out. "Only that the ritual that creates it makes it very hard to break the spell."

"In any event," Hermione turned back to Harry, "you don't have access to a Horcrux, or any real information about them — the books that contained the ritual for creating one were stolen or removed from Hogwarts long ago, and the only person we know who knew it — Voldemort — is dead. Unless you can think up a way to measure a soul somehow you're at a dead end before you even start!"

"It _is_ a problem," Monroe agreed. "But I'm with Harry on this — I don't believe souls exist."

Hermione gave him an even look. "I never said I _did_. But I don't know how to go about either proving _or_ disproving their existence, Mr. Monroe."

Harry had leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table with his head leaning against his hands. "Substrate independence," he said.

"What?" Hermione looked confused. But the other wizard in the room was nodding at Harry's words.

"Yes, I think I see where you're going," Monroe said. "Like a ghost being an accidental impression of the mind of a wizard, left behind after his or her death. Like the Portrait Ritual, which infuses the painting of a person with some of his or her memories and intelligence. Like the Sorting Hat being able to talk directly into your brain while you're wearing it, and being able to talk aloud even when nobody's wearing it!"

"But that's not the same thing!" Hermione objected. "We don't know how the Sorting Hat was created, but there are many spells and rituals that instill a semblance of intelligence in otherwise inanimate objects. And we know that wizards who have an unhealthy fear of death sometimes remain behind as ghosts when they die, especially if their death was abrupt or unnatural. But a ghost isn't a person's _soul_!"

"How do you know?" Harry asked, tonelessly.

"Because —" Hermione hesitated. "Because… it's not…fully self-aware. A person's soul would have _all_ of their memories and personality."

"Dumbledore once told me that ghosts are not supposed to be here," Harry remembered. "They are supposed to move on, he said. He also made reference to the Veil in the Department of Mysteries and to the long-lost Resurrection Stone, one of the three Deathly Hallows."

"Dumbledore evidently believed in souls," Monroe said. "But I remember reading up on ghosts, and the literature is quick to point out that only wizards can become ghosts, not Muggles. That seems to leave a hole in his soul theory."

"Yes," Hermione agreed. "I've read that, too. But that only means that Muggles don't release a burst of magic when they die, and so cannot create a ghostly afterimage of themselves."

"You know," Harry remarked, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his stomach. "I'm starting to get hungry again."

"What?" Hermione looked sharply at her husband. "Don't try to distract us from the conversation, Harry! I thought you _wanted_ to talk about this!"

"I do," Harry nodded. "But some Diracawl would be nice while we talked." He glanced at his watch. "It's just a few minutes before six."

"Do you want to _wait_ until after we get something to eat before we continue this conversation?" Hermione shot a look of incredulity toward Monroe, who didn't react, then turned back to Harry. "Fine, then let's just sit here saying nothing until then!"

"Fine with me," Harry nodded. "I need to think a bit anyway."

=ooo=

Ginny took her drink, thanked the bargirl, and walked outside to one of the few tables the small café had along its storefront. She was still nursing the anger that had built up inside her from the argument she'd had with Dean earlier that day, and being outside might help it dissipate.

It was unlikely anyone would recognize her here, even in Diagon Alley and despite her tell-tale red hair, almost a dead giveaway for a Weasley in this wizarding community. The bargirl had been pleasant but didn't seem to recognize her as she was pouring her glass of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey. This café, known only as Darla's, was on a cul-de-sac well off of Diagon Alley proper, and was the last shop in the row; passers-by were few and far between. That was well, because Ginny needed to think.

She and Dean were arguing more and more lately. Her mother had suggested that was normal for young couples, that she and Dad had argued a lot when they were younger, before he'd learned his place in their household, Mum had added with a chuckle. Fred and George had shrugged it off, airily as usual, and their wives had told her separately that they tried to understand their husbands and the pressure they were under to do well, to be successful in Diagon Alley as their older brothers were in their jobs, Bill Weasley running Ollivanders, the premier wand shop in Diagon Alley and Charlie at the Ministry of Magic, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation. And Percy… Ginny drained her glass of firewhiskey then watched as it slowly refilled. She'd ordered three shots, so the glass would refill once more after this.

Harry and Hermione, Ginny had to admit, seemed like a perfect couple, even accounting for some of the things she'd witnessed over the years. Harry was not a typical wizarding husband; he did not expect his wife to be at his beck and call, like many wizards did, even in this day and age. He had never disapproved of Hermione working outside the home. Indeed, he seemed to support Hermione in whatever she did! Ginny wondered how much Hermione appreciated that fact. Not very much, she suspected, not as much as Ginny would.

"Oi, sis, what are you doing here?" Ginny looked up, surprised to see her brother Ron standing beside her. Normally she was more aware of her surroundings than this! "I didn't think you even knew this place existed," Ron said, sitting down at her table.

"I didn't until fifteen minutes ago," Ginny said, not sure whether she was happy to see Ron or not. Of all her brothers, he was the most understanding of her and her situation with Dean. They had talked about her marriage many times and Ron had always given her good advice.

Ron's one blind spot in their relationship, however, was his abiding dislike for Harry Potter. They had first met, Ron told her, on Platform 9¾ on their first trip to Hogwarts, when Mum had helped Harry avoid some kind of argument with his parents by telling him how to get through the barrier to the Platform. He'd gone up to Harry on the other side and tried to make conversation with him, but Harry had been — well, very weird, according to Ron. He didn't even want to be called Harry Potter, Ron had said; he'd put on a winter scarf even though it was a perfectly pleasant day, and then didn't want anyone to know who he was! He insisted on being called names like Goop or something silly like that.

And he hadn't liked Quidditch, Ron had hastened to point out. A wizard that _didn't like Quidditch_! Unbelievable! He even talked about _changing the rules_! But even that hadn't been enough to deter Ron from trying to be his friend. He remembered, he'd reminded Ginny, just how much she'd talked about him when Mum had told them that Harry Potter would be just about Ron's age, born a few months after he was. Ron figured, he said, he would sit with Harry on the Hogwarts Express, get to know him, try to get him to Sort into Gryffindor, the best House at Hogwarts, and he though Harry would come round to Quidditch after he'd seen it played a few times during the first year.

But then Draco Malfoy showed up. _Everybody_ knew who the Malfoys were — Lucius Malfoy, or _Lord_ _Malfoy_ as he preferred in meetings of the Wizengamot, was hell-bent on becoming the de facto ruler of Wizarding Britain now that You-Know-Who was gone. And Draco was certainly his father's son, Ron had said, darkly — he'd wasted no time in bringing up Percy's rat in front of Harry, and suggested Ron tell him the story. And almost surprisingly, Harry had agreed with Ron, and told Malfoy he didn't have to tell the story if he didn't want to, and asked Malfoy to drop it. And Ron had really thought, he'd said, that he might still be Harry's friend if only Malfoy would _go away_, and he suggested that Harry tell him to do just that.

But then Harry Potter had said that Malfoy was welcome to talk to him if he wanted to! And that had done it for Ron, he'd walked away and written off Harry Potter as some kind of suck-up and toady to powerful people like the Malfoys. Wrongly, as he later admitted, but Ron had never forgiven him for preferring Draco Malfoy over him. Among other things, Ron had muttered; Ginny knew exactly what he was talking about. Ron had nursed a crush on Hermione Granger for years, just as Ginny had nursed one on Harry, though neither of them would ever admit it.

"So what're you doing here?" Ron asked, eyeing the glass of firewhiskey in her hand. "Shouldn't you be home making dinner for your husband?" Said with a small ironic twist to his mouth — Ron knew how she felt about the whole _witches should be loving and doting to their husbands_ thing.

"Shouldn't you be home making Luna's supper?" Ginny retorted, knocking back her second shot of firewhiskey. Luna was, of course, a perfectly loving and doting wife, but Ron at least had the good sense not to take her for granted. Ginny and Luna had been in the same year at Hogwarts, though Luna had been Ravenclaw and Ginny (naturally, like all the Weasleys) had been Gryffindor, but they'd become good friends. Ginny liked suggesting that Ron should do more for his wife than simply not take advantage of her the way Fred and George seemed to do with theirs, even though their wives were more vocal about being treated equally by their husbands.

"It's her night to make dinner," Ron replied. That was a little joke between him and Ginny; Luna made dinner almost every night, but a couple of times a week Ron would "make dinner" by taking them out to eat. They both chuckled, then Ron put on a more serious face.

"There was something I wanted to talk to you about," Ron said. "It's good I happened to run into you." He paused a moment, looking at her carefully. "It's about Harry."

"What about Harry?" Ginny asked warily. Whenever Ron had something to say about Harry it usually wasn't' good; there was no reason to think today would be any different.

"I think that he's really trying to bring back You-Know-Who," Ron said, rushing the words out in case they got caught in his throat.

Ginny frowned. "Why would he do that?" she asked. "He nearly killed Harry the last time they fought!"

"Because without You-Know-Who, Harry Potter isn't really all that much," Ron argued. "You were a grade behind him — you saw all the trouble he caused over the next six years at Hogwarts. He damn near _ruined_ Quidditch during our second year with all those stupid rules he wanted to add, and our third year he got Professor Lupin sacked because he was a werewolf!"

"You've always hated werewolves, Ron," Ginny pointed out quietly.

"But Lupin was a great teacher!" Ron objected. "Look at where he's at now! Nobody would have thought —" He cut himself off abruptly. "Anyway," he went on more quietly. "I think something's got to be done about what Potter's trying to do."

"And what's that, do you think?" Ginny asked, her lips set in a thin line.

"The Ministry's got to be notified," Ron said at once. "I know you don't like it," he added, seeing her expression. "I know you work for the guy and everything." It didn't need to be said what he meant by _everything_. "But we can't go through another wizarding war! A lot of people _died_ in the last one!"

"Malfoy knows you don't like Harry," Ginny pointed out. "He's knows you're going to be biased."

"So?" Ron shrugged. "Malfoy doesn't like him either, does he? I don't think he's going to care what _I _think so long as I bring him evidence."

"What kind of evidence do you have against Harry?" Ginny wanted to know.

"For one thing, all those books Fred and George have been finding for him all these years," Ron answered. Collecting Interdicted spell books was mildly illegal; the Ministry didn't want any spell experiments involving Interdicted spells going on outside Department of Mysteries supervision.

"So you're going to turn in your own brothers to get at Harry?" Ginny demanded accusingly.

"Malfoy doesn't have to know where the books came from," Ron declared. "Only that Harry has them!"

"It's not a good idea to cross wits with Malfoy, Ron," Ginny warned. "You're not playing at Battle Magic games in school anymore."

"I know what I'm doing," Ron said, with a touch of petulance. "I was one of Hermione's Captains, you know."

"Who got outsmarted by Neville Longbottom," Ginny reminded him. Ron grimaced. That had been his biggest sore spot during the entire first year of Battle Magic.

"He didn't fight fair," Ron complained, a sullen look on his face.

"Neither did Harry Potter, from what you've said," Ginny said. "And neither will Malfoy, if you try to use him against Harry. Malfoy is going to be suspicious of any Weasley that tries to give him information against Harry Potter — he's suspect it's a trick. And if things don't work out the way you expect them to, he's going to put the blame on you."

"Malfoy won't do anything to me," Ron scoffed. "He wants everyone in Diagon Alley to think he's everybody's protector, keeping them safe from evil Harry Potter and his lackeys, the Gringotts goblins — he's got most of the shopkeepers believing he's a slumlord planning to kick them out of their shops for the least excuse."

"And you know better than that," Ginny said, scowling at her brother. "You don't have _any_ evidence that Harry's trying to bring back the Dark Lord, do you?"

"Only what he told us a few days ago!" Ron snapped. "He practically admitted Quirrell may have had something to do with that Monroe showing up at Harry's building!"

"But that was before we found out that Monroe was a wizard!" Ginny snapped right back. "_And_ that he has memories of being at Hogwarts!"

"But those could have been faked!" Ron objected. "Did Harry ever check for that possibility?"

"I don't know," Ginny shook her head. "But even so, Ron, you can't go to Malfoy with flimsy evidence like that!" She stood suddenly. "Look, you're going to do what you want — I know better than to tell you not to, because you're as stubborn as Fred and George are when you think you're right. But just be careful what you say to Malfoy — he's probably more obsessed about Harry than even _you_ are."

Ron doubted that, but said nothing. Ginny wasn't going to believe anything he said about Harry until he got proof that Harry was plotting something involving Monroe, or maybe even _Quirrell_ somehow.

"I'm going home," Ginny announced. "You should do the same, Ron — your wife's waiting for you, I'm sure. I'll — talk to you later." They looked at each other a long moment, both wondering what the other would do now that they'd had this conversation, then Ginny spun on her heel and walked away.

Ron watched her walk up the byway until she turned into the main street and out of sight. Their argument had only strengthened his resolved to expose Harry any way he could. He picked up her last drink and gulped it down, then set the empty glass back on the table and walked away as well, to go home and make his own plans for Harry Potter's downfall.

=ooo=

The aroma of fried Diracawl wafted through Mary's Room, mixing with the smell of Roopo balls, which Harry had suggested to Monroe, and Hermione's Dirigible Plum salad. The server had arrived only a minute ago with a tray bearing all three meals, placing each plate silently and accurately before the person who had ordered it, then quickly bowed and departed, pulling the door closed.

Harry leaned forward and inhaled slowly, savoring the smell of his fried Diracawl meat, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans. "Mmm, that smells good."

Monroe had already tasted a Roopo ball. "You were right," he nodded toward Harry. "These are delicious!"

Harry nodded back, his mouth now full of mashed potatoes and gravy. He took a sip of his drink, a mug of Merlin's Best Mead, and said, "It's been a while since I've had any, but I remember the first time I tried some, I was here with —" he cut himself off, then continued "— a friend, and he ordered them for me."

Hermione, who had said nothing since the server arrived to take their orders just at six, finally spoke. "Do you want to continue our conversation from earlier, or would you just prefer to eat?"

"Whadeber ju libe," Harry replied, his mouth full, and Hermione gave him a severe look but took out her wand and re-cast the spells that would give them complete privacy.

"I've been thinking about this soul thing as well," she said, sliding her wand back into its protective pocket within her robe. "There really isn't a way you can definitively prove its non-existence."

"I know," Harry said.

Hermione did a double take. "What? Then why did you…?"

"I've been thinking, too," Harry said, after swallowing a mouthful of potatoes and green beans. "It's hard to prove a negative, that something _doesn't_ exist."

"But it has been done," Monroe pointed out. "Luminiferous ether, for example."

"And phlogiston, and geocentrism, and the classical elements," Harry amplified. "Even though certain theories of magic still accept Air, Earth, Fire and Water as being the basis of all matter."

Hermione was upset with herself. How could she have _forgotten_ about such things? She had read about them _years_ before she ever came to Hogwarts! "Granted," she said, grudgingly accepting that she could be wrong. "But what kind of experiment can you perform that would affect the soul? The only thing we know that is supposed to be able to do that is the act of _murder_, and you can't go around murdering people in the name of science!"

"Of course not," Harry agreed. "That would be a direct violation of my goals as a scientist and futurist." He leaned forward then, his plate of fried Diricawl forgotten. "But what constitutes a murder, exactly?"

"What do you mean?" Hermione looked shocked. "Killing someone without justification, obviously! Why would you even ask that?"

"To point out the critical factor in murder," Monroe interjected. "A lack of justification."

Harry didn't affirm or deny that comment, he only said, "When an Auror kills a Dark wizard, does he commit murder?"

"Of course not!" Hermione replied immediately. "He is acting lawfully, under the auspices of the Ministry of Magic, which grants him immunity in such cases."

"Even when using the Killing Curse to kill said Dark wizard?" Harry asked.

"Yes."

"Even if said Auror attacks without warning, without giving the Dark wizard a chance to surrender?" Harry asked.

"…Yes," Hermione said, more slowly this time. "The Dark wizard has violated wizarding law and is no longer under its protection, so the Auror has discretion as to how he can bring the Dark wizard to justice."

"And what if the Auror considers such a sneak attack to be murder, but does it anyway, for expediency's sake?"

Hermione frowned again. "I don't know if I can speak to someone's personal morality in such a situation. The Auror is justified under the law — his personal morality in that case is something for him to decide."

"So if I killed someone in self-defense," Harry continued his questioning. "Would I be justified under wizarding law?"

"Yes, if it could be shown that you _really were_ acting in self-defense. Under Veritaserum, for example."

"And what if I were a perfect Occlumens?" Harry smiled.

"Then you would be asked to provide your memories of the incident for Pensieve viewing," Hermione answered, "and Ministry-certified Legilimenses would examine them for inconsistencies and report any to the Wizengamot at your trial."

"With enough planning false memories could be fabricated and made available to the Legilimenses," Harry pointed out.

"Which is why we'd have several Legilimenses _independently_ review the memories, none of whom would know who else is doing so," Hermione said, sounding tired of Harry's nitpicking. "The system isn't perfect, but we can make efforts to be as thorough as possible. Perhaps you'd care to explain what _your_ point is?"

"Only that it's extremely difficult to quantify something like 'justification'," Harry said. "What if I could create a Horcrux without actually killing someone, by making myself believe I had done so? Could I rip my 'soul' in half by sincerely believing I had done murder? What if I subsequently learn that my belief was the result of a False Memory Charm — would that render the Horcrux powerless to preserve my existence if my body were killed?"

"At the Salem Institute," Monroe said, "the consensus is that the soul cannot be healed while a Horcrux exists — it must be destroyed and the wizard who created it must be genuinely, sincerely repentant of the murder committed before the soul can be made whole again.

"Even so," he continued, "there was much debate among wizard-philosophers whether the fragment of the soul from the Horcrux could ever rejoin the soul it was torn from. Some wizard-theologians contended that the souls must meet in the afterlife in order to reconcile and become one again. Others thought that the wizard would exhibit symptoms of schizophrenia or multiple personalities until the healing process was concluded."

"So how might we use a Horcrux to determine whether it traps a fragment of a soul, or whether some other mechanism is in play?" Harry asked. "Because Horcruxes obviously _work _— we know that Voldemort used one —" (_at least _one, Harry did not say in front of his wife) "— and that it kept him alive after he tried to kill me."

"And where will _you_ get a Horcrux?" Hermione demanded. "You told me you destroyed the one Voldemort made with Fiendfyre! There should be nothing left of anything burned with magic that powerful!"

"Yes, that's true…mostly," Harry said, slowly, deliberating whether he should show her and Monroe what he'd had hidden away for nearly two decades now. "But maybe we should finish dinner, and I can show the two of you something back at our flat."

Hermione's expression slowly turned dangerous. "Harry…_what do you have in our home_?!"

"Oh, it's not dangerous!" Harry hastened to say. "I killed it a long time ago."

"_Killed it_?!" Hermione's voice was the shrillest he'd ever heard it before today. "_Harry_! _You promised me you wouldn't kill any more Dark wizards without telling me first_!"

"It bit me _first_," Harry said, a bit defensively. "But don't worry, love — it's not — quite — a dead Dark wizard."

"I know I've said this before, " Monroe commented matter-of-factly. "But this should be interesting."

=ooo=

After Harry paid the bill for their meal, they walked quickly from Mary's Place to the public Floo station near the intersection of Diagon and Knockturn Alleys, paying 10 Sickles apiece for a small packet of Floo powder, enough for a single trip through Wizarding Britain's Floo Network.

"I'll go first," Harry said, opening his packet in preparation to throwing it into the fireplace they'd been assigned for their trip. "I'll have the connection to our apartment unlocked by the time you and Monroe get there."

"Fine," Hermione said curtly; she was still aggravated at learning Harry had kept something secret about (presumably) Voldemort all these years — he hadn't said who the Dark wizard was, exactly, but it almost certainly had to be _that_ particular one.

Harry glanced at Monroe, who gave a slight shrug of commiseration. It was pretty obvious that Harry's wife was pretty ticked at him. Harry blinked acknowledgement of Monroe's gesture then turned back to the fireplace.

He flicked the bit of Floo powder into the hearth, which promptly burst into brilliant green flames, burning but giving off no heat. "TBC Building!" Harry said loudly, then stepped into the flames and vanished.

Hermione stepped up to the flames next, but instead of throwing her packet in she turned to face Monroe. "Do you know what he's going to show us?" she demanded.

"No, I don't," Monroe shook his head. "He's never mentioned anything about having any kind of Dark wizard artifact."

Hermione stared at him for a moment, then seemed to slump in relief. "It's just been a very weird week since you showed up to interview Harry this last time, Mr. Monroe. I think _you've_ seem more of him in the past few days that _I_ have!"

"You might be right," Monroe conceded. "But honestly, I don't know what to make of all this, either. I still don't know how I got my memories back or why they had been suppressed in the first place."

There was real concern in Hermione's voice. "Have you asked Harry for help finding out what happened? He can't resist a challenge like that."

"To tell the truth," Monroe said, a bit wryly. "That hadn't occurred to me. We've been discussing things like the Magical Singularity and the Interdict of Merlin —"

"Oh." She didn't look happy at that. "His 'secret' projects." When Monroe's expression turned wary, she waved off his concern. "Don't worry about it, Mr. Monroe — I know about them. I just didn't think he was still into that sort of thing anymore — he seemed more interested in the Muggle Singularity these days."

"I was, too," Monroe said. "At least, when I was a Muggle myself. Now the Magical Singularity seems pretty interesting, except…" he trailed off, not sure if he was about to say something he shouldn't.

"Except…what?" Hermione prompted.

"Well… magical knowledge isn't increasing at nearly the rate it should," Monroe went on. "If the Interdict of Merlin continues to impede magical progress, it will slow to a crawl, to almost no further real progress at all. That means non-magical progress will eventually outstrip the magical and the Technological Singularity will probably occur first."

"Assuming that's true, and I'm not sure it is, isn't that good for everyone either way?" Hermione asked, curiously.

"Yes, I suppose," Monroe agreed, slowly. "It might even mean that everyone would be able to perform magic, if our posthuman existence allows us to harness magic as a natural force the way wizards are able to now."

"Have you mentioned that to Harry?"

"Not in so many words."

"Maybe you should," Hermione suggested. "I don't know if he thinks it's a race between the Magical Singularity and the Muggle one, but it seems like there are reasons to work towards both. We'll be waiting for you on the other side." Hermione turned back to the fireplace and threw the packet of Floo powder in. "TBC Building!" she said, very clearly, and the emerald flames swirled about her as she disappeared.

Monroe followed her a moment later, wondering what surprise Harry Potter had in store for them this time.

=ooo=

When Monroe stepped from the fireplace where the Floo connection had deposited him, he immediately recognized where they were: standing in the waiting area of Harry Potter's office. Hermione was there waiting for him, but there was no sign of Harry. Monroe stepped forward to join her then turned around to look at the fireplace he'd just come through. It was taking up most of one wall of the waiting area: a finely-built stone fireplace with a large oak mantle crowning it. "I'm pretty sure that wasn't here the last time I came to visit Harry's office," he said, diffidently.

"It was," Hermione remarked. "You just didn't know it." Looking at the fireplace, she said, "Close, sesame!" in a loud voice.

The fireplace began to disappear with a loud sucking sound, as if it were being pulled through a small hole in the middle of the wall, until nothing remained but the wall itself. The divan that Monroe remembered sitting along that wall had somehow bubbled up out of the floor and nothing looked at all out of the ordinary.

"Handy," Monroe said.

"Not really," Hermione disagreed. "We can't use it during normal business hours, obviously. There's another Floo connection on the main floor, it's our "public" connection in the building. This one, though, is keyed so that only a small group of people arrive here instead of downstairs when they Floo to the "TBC Building."

"How did I get here, then?" Monroe asked, mildly surprised. "Surely _I'm_ not on that list —"

"Of course you are," Harry said from the doorway of his office. "You've been very helpful the past few days — I want your help on some of the things we've been talking about."

Hermione was giving her husband a sidelong glance. "And what _has_ Mr. Monroe been helping you with, dear?" The last word was said with a healthy measure of irony.

"Well, let's see." Harry began counting off items on his fingers. "We started by discussing paths to the Magical Singularity a few days ago, after Monroe learned he was a wizard who had attended both Hogwarts and the Salem Institute.

"Then we got into the Interdict of Merlin, which has been a real hindrance to magical progress over the past 800 years. We've got to do something about that, obviously." Harry counted off another item.

"And then there's this question of whether souls exist or not," he finished. "Which brings us to the thing I wanted to show you. Follow me." Harry led them into his office, where the passageway behind his bookshelves was already opened. But instead of walking down the short corridor to the private dining area, Harry tapped on the corridor wall itself three times. The wall melted away, revealing a small room beyond, with an elevator and a single button.

"We're going to the Vault," Harry told Hermione, in answer to the arched eyebrow she'd given him.

"Mr. Monroe is coming with us?" Hermione asked, trying not to betray the surprise she felt. As far as she knew, Harry had never told _anyone_ except her about the Vault. In fact, this would be the first time she'd actually seen it — assuming Harry let them inside. Which she doubted he would. It was like his Sanctum Sanctorum. His Fortress of Solitude. His…well, she couldn't think of any more superhero hideouts, offhand, but it was something like that.

Harry pushed the button of the elevator, then remarked to Monroe, "It's got fingerprint _and_ DNA recognition, so a Polyjuice potion alone wouldn't fool it."

"Sweet," Monroe said, and both men nodded, smiling. Hermione looked away and rolled her eyes. Boys and their toys!

The elevator doors opened on a long, dimly-lit corridor. They walked its length, their footsteps echoing strangely back and forth. It was quite apparent in listening to them that three separate people were moving along the corridor. At the far end the corridor suddenly dead-ended — there was nowhere else to go.

Monroe looked questioningly at Harry, who pointed at the blank wall ahead of them. "What do you think? A hidden, secret door? A portal, like the entrance to Diagon Alley? Perhaps a Portkey that I've brought with me?"

Monroe looked around at the blank ceiling, floor, and the three walls around them. "It could be any of those, of course. The Portkey seems like the most secure method, though someone might be able to Plot this area and figure out where your Vault room is unless you've made it Unplottable. I assume the area has an Anti-Apparition Jinx on it."

"And a Portkey Hex," Harry added. "So a Portkey's not the answer either. I doubt if any wizard could figure this out in any length —"

"Oh for God's sake, Harry!" Hermione said loudly. "Can we just go inside already?!"

"Alright, alright!" Harry said in a placating tone. He stepped closer to the blank wall ahead of them and cleared his throat. "This is keyed to my voice only, by the way," he said, parenthetically, "so don't try this yourselves." Harry turned to the wall and sang,

_Be prepared! That's the Boy Scout's marching song!  
><em>_Be prepared! As through life you march along!_

In response, the doorway opened upon a spiral metal staircase. "Voilà!" he said. "The entrance to the Vault."

Monroe was chuckling to himself. Looking at Harry, he said in a sing-song voice,

_Be prepared to hold your liquor pretty well!  
><em>_Don't write naughty words on walls if you can't spell!_

Harry blinked. Several times. "What?" he said, blankly.

"The words to that song," Monroe answered. "'Be Prepared,' by Tom Lehrer."

"It's a _real_ _song_?" Hermione gasped.

"There are _more_ words to it?" Harry looked thunderstruck.

"Yeah, a couple of verses more," Monroe said. "Haven't either of you ever heard the whole thing?"

Harry looked shocked. He looked at Hermione. "Did you know there were other words to that song?!"

"Don't ask me!" she replied defensively. "I thought it was just something your parents told you so you'd be prepared for — well, things — life — whatever!"

"Okay, never mind!" Harry said, waving off further comment, but promising himself he was going to Siri the words to that song the first chance he got. "Let's go." He stepped onto the stairs, which promptly began moving upward. Behind him, Hermione and Monroe stepped on the stairs as well.

In a few moments the three of them stood before a non-descript door with a small sign on it. The sign read,

**What's the**  
><strong>magic word?<strong>

Harry turned to Monroe. "From here anyone who knows the secret word can open it. Care to have a go?"

"Not really," Monroe said, flatly. "Unless it's 'recognition code 927, I am a potato'."

"No," Harry said. "I already changed that after meeting you. Go on, guess."

"_Harry_…" Hermione muttered threateningly.

"Oh, all right!" Harry said, a bit irked at being hurried at the most important part of the whole deal. "Well, it begins with 'Klaatu'."

"Oh!" Monroe grinned. "Klaatu barada nikto!"

Nothing happened.

"You were close," Harry said, beaming. "But actually, it's —"

He turned back to the door and said,

"Klaatu barada n— necktie… neckturn…nickel… It's an 'N' word, it's definitely an 'N' word. Klaatu barada N—" and Harry coughed.

The door slowly opened and Harry stepped inside, then turned around to face them, a wide smile across his face. "Welcome to the Bat Cave!" he said happily.

Hermione was rubbing her forehead. "I knew it was someplace like that…" she muttered to herself.

Harry gestured for them to follow; Hermione and Monroe walked behind him, both looking around in the room's dim lights. There were several rows of bookshelves immediately inside the door, extending off to the left and right; on his left Monroe counted six sets of shelves forming smaller aisles between them. He could see books of all different sizes arranged in them in no particular order — at least, none that he could discern without reading the titles.

Beyond the aisles of books were several display cases arranged in a more-or-less haphazard manner; Harry wandered through them, running a hand over one or two of them as he passed. Monroe looked in the cases as he passed them, but the first case held only three silver objects that looked more like knick-knacks than magical devices. The second case had a wand in it, snapped in two pieces. Another case had a large, jagged rock inside it.

"So where's the giant penny?" Monroe asked, as Harry neared the far wall. Hermione chuckled at that, and Harry turned around to give him a bemused look.

"It's on loan to the London Museum of Magical History," he said, matter-of-factly; he seemed perfectly serious, but Monroe had to assume he was kidding. He turned back to the wall, which had four wooden drawers set into it, pulled one open, and took out a book, which he tossed to Monroe saying, "Have a look at that."

Monroe almost dropped it, but managed to hold on. The book was old and in bad shape; the cover was a faded and worn black, and had the number 1942 at the top near the outside edge. The most striking thing about the book, however, was the gaping hole in its center — Monroe could see just a bit a light showing through from the other side. Whatever had penetrated the book had gone all the way through it.

Flipping it open, Monroe found nothing but blank pages. He looked up at Harry and Hermione. "There's nothing in it," he said, not seeing anything else significant about it.

"Look on the first page," Harry suggested. Monroe opened the book again, and on the first page found the name "T.M. Riddle" written in a flowing script.

"Oh. I get it now," Monroe handed the book toward Hermione, who seemed reluctant to take it — she had seen the name, too.

Harry reached out and took it from Monroe before his wife could take it. "Yes, it's Tom Riddle's," he said to her. "And it was a Horcrux."

"But — but how can that be?" Hermione seemed astonished at that statement. "You told me that you and Professor Dumbledore destroyed his Horcrux, a gold ring with a black stone setting, at the end of our first year!"

"As it turned out," Harry told her, hefting the book, "he had more than one or them."

"_More than_ _one_ Horcrux?" Monroe said, incredulous.

"Yes," Harry said. "Dumbledore and I eventually figured out that he split his soul in three rather than two, because three is a powerful magical number and because the idea of splitting one's —" Harry hesitated, then shrugged and said, "well, soul, more than once is virtually unknown in Dark wizard lore. It's never even been mentioned in wizarding stories like _The_ _Tales of Beedle the Bard_. Quirrell — or Voldemort, whichever you prefer — probably thought he could guarantee at least one fragment of his soul (or whatever) would never be found and he would remain unkillable forever."

"So he created _two_ Horcruxes?" Hermione looked aghast. "Wouldn't that significantly decrease his magical ability?"

"Why would it do that?" Monroe asked, looking puzzled. Then, "Oh, do you think magic is bound up in one's soul?"

"I don't know," Hermione shook her head. "I don't know if I believe in souls, except that it's the only thing that explains Horcruxes."

"Well, we have an ex-Horcrux here, now," Harry said, holding up the book. "We should be able to examine this for residual magic, maybe conduct some experiments, and see what we come up with."

"But even if there _was_ a soul inside this book once," Monroe argued. "Whatever you did to it released the soul, somehow? How does that help us figure out whether souls exist? And how _did_ you destroy this Horcrux, by the way? It looks like you stabbed it with something."

"A Basilisk fang," Harry said, "from the Chamber of Secrets."

"So you _did_ find it!" Hermione said, her tone accusatory again. "You told me the Chamber of Secrets was probably a legend!"

"I thought it was, when I told you that," Harry admitted. "But Dumbledore and I finally — well, it's kind of a long story, I'll save it for another time."

"Did you have to fight the Basilisk?" Monroe asked.

"No," Harry said, almost wistfully. A True Hero would have found the Monster of Slytherin alive and battled with it to the death. At least, that was how Dumbledore had seen things — he'd been sorely disappointed when they found only its remains. But practicalities ruled back then, and they got what they came for — a way to kill Riddle's diary. Harry hadn't known at the time that Fiendfyre would have killed the diary as well, but right now he was thankful he hadn't, because the cursed fire would have burned the book to ashes, and he wouldn't have it now.

"I suggest we put this away for now," Harry said, "and take a fresh look at it tomorrow. I need to wind down a bit after all the stuff we've been through today."

"_You've_ been through?" Monroe laughed, then shrugged and nodded. "Well, I agree — I'm beat."

"Do you have a place to stay tonight, Mr. Monroe?" Hermione asked, in a kindly tone. "We have a guest room if you'd like to sleep here."

"Thanks," Monroe smiled. "But I'm curious if Malfoy will try to have me picked up again if I get a room at the Leaky Cauldron tonight. I don't think he would dare now, really."

"If he does, he'll probably send a squad of Aurors after you," Harry warned. "But I think you're probably safe, at least tonight — I can't imagine he's that much of a glutton for bad publicity, and that's exactly what he'd get without something really incriminating against you."

"What about that book?" Monroe pointed to Riddle's diary. "Isn't that something he could charge you for — withholding a dangerous or Dark magical item?"

Harry smiled as he idly held up the tattered diary. "He could — if it were a Dark item. But right now it's about as dangerous as wet parchment. He'd find traces of magic, sure — the Department of Mysteries might even figure out that it was Voldemort's.

"Come by the office about six p.m. — and not before," he warned. "I can make sure everyone's gone by five-thirty if I declare tomorrow a Casual Day. Everyone is free to leave anytime after thee p.m. Ginny might be a problem," Harry added parenthetically to Hermione, "but I'll tell her I'm going home at five-thirty, so she might as well go home, too."

"Alright, six it is, then," Monroe agreed. "Now, if one of you could show me how to get out of here…?"

=ooo=

Monroe Apparated to Charing Cross Road, a short walk from the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron. Both Harry and his wife had asked him to stay in their home, but he had the impression that Hermione would soon figure out what he had — that Harry had probably found the diary Horcrux _after_ Quirrell — or Voldemort, whichever way you wanted to think of him — had been killed. In that case, Monroe supposed, there would be a long, protracted argument going on in the Potter-Evans-Verres-Granger household. And Monroe preferred to let the couple work that out on their own.

The proprietress of the Cauldron gave him a wondering look as he asked for a room — no doubt she was wondering what had gone on after she turned him in, Monroe decided, and why he was back in her inn _now_. But she said nothing to him, nor did he deign to enlighten her about his reasons for returning. The Cauldron was a nice, well-established public house, a place where wizards could venture forth into Muggle London or the magical Diagon Alley, and Monroe wanted to be able to choose either one depending on whether anyone decided to visit him in the middle of the night. He would be prepared for Ministry Aurors in case Malfoy decided to bring him in again despite the recent bad publicity doing so had caused him of late.

And it would be nice, Monroe reflected, walking up to his room, if whoever had put him into this situation in the first place would pay him a visit. For surely, he thought, he would not have done this to _himself_!

In his room, he cast a series of detection spells, to determine if there were any Muggle or magical scyring devices trained on him. The spells revealed nothing. Monroe began warding the room against any known form of magical intrusion, up to and including a Time-Turned wizard from hours or days in the future (allowing for the possibility that the Ministry could override a Time-Turner's six-hour limit).

With the room magically secure, Monroe began preparing for bed. He _Scorgify_ed the clothing he was wearing then placed an illusion charm on them to make them appear like a pajama top and bottom. Now a quick _Finite_ would leave him ready for travel in a moment. A similar cleaning spell removed any particles of food remaining in his mouth and throat. He reached in his pocket and pulled out an exact duplicate of his wand, placing on the bedside table next to his bed. Anyone who managed to make it past his wards would suppose that he was unarmed if they saw that wand, indistinguishable from his own.

His mind was still going over the discussions he'd had today with Harry and Hermione. It was true: these past few days _had_ been very interesting. Monroe got into bed, covering himself with the sheets and blankets, then cast a Cooling Charm to keep from getting too warm. Monroe closed his eyes and willed himself to fall asleep. Tomorrow was likely to be even more interesting still.


	14. A Conversation with the Weasleys

_Chapter Fourteen_

**A Conversation with the Weasleys  
><strong>**Updated 6/2/2012**

**=ooo=**

James Monroe felt himself awaken, though it seemed he had barely settled into bed for the night. He didn't open his eyes; doing so would only confirm he was awake, and if none of his wards or trip spells were going off, he wanted to be able to drift back to sleep with a minimum of trouble.

On the other hand, something didn't feel right about the room.

Eyes still closed, Monroe began concentrating on his wards one by one, checking if they were still in place. All of them were secure — nothing had tripped any of them, including the wards he'd placed around his bed after he'd climbed in. The wards on the hallway and staircase were secure as well, which made the malaise he felt all the more incomprehensible. Why did it _feel_ like someone was in the room if none of his wards had tripped?

"Wakey, wakey."

Monroe's eyes snapped open. Sitting on a chair beside the bed was a scowling Ron Weasley, dressed in black jeans and T-shirt. Monroe and Ron stared at each other for several seconds before Ron said, with a smirk, "Can we talk?"

Monroe glanced at the bedside table, where his wand had been. It was gone. Not surprising, he thought. "You might have given me a little more notice," Monroe replied, dryly. "We could have met over breakfast."

"I didn't want you ducking out," Ron told him. He held up the wand from the bedside table. "We're going to be talking about you and You-Know-Who."

Monroe pushed himself up onto one elbow, leaning toward Ron. "You're under the same misapprehension the Ministry is, that I know anything at all about Voldemort." He watched as Ron winced slightly at the mention of that name. "He's been dead for decades now."

"_Is_ he?" Even in the dim light of the window Monroe could see that Ron was staring closely at him. "How would _you_ know that?"

"It's common knowledge, that's what everyone thinks," Monroe said, sitting up all the way now. His eyes, still accustomed to darkness, could make out two more figures sitting in the shadows of his room. "Ah, I see this is a real family meeting, so to speak."

"Right," said Fred or George, from the shadows.

"How did you three get in here anyway?" Monroe wondered.

"We made an arrangement with Hannah," one of the twins replied. "She let us know which room you were staying in."

"Hmm," Monroe made a mental note not to stay at the Leaky Cauldron again. "So what are you doing here?"

"Ickle Ronnie here convinced us we should have a little conversation with you, to see what your intentions concerning Harry are."

Ron looked back at them. "Don't call me 'ickle Ronnie'!" he said, irritably.

"Okay, Ronnikins," one of the twins said. Ron shook his head, frustrated, as the chairs Fred and George occupied slid forward toward the bed, stopping on either side of Ron.

"You know, I'm a bit surprised you don't have me hog-tied, muzzled, and on the way to your shop," Monroe commented. "Seeing as how you managed to get past my wards so easily."

"We couldn't —" Ron began.

"You wound us, Mr. Monroe," Fred said, speaking over Ron. "We couldn't be that rude." Ron shot his brother a look but said nothing. "We thought we'd give you the opportunity to respond in a more — oh, neutral, shall we say — environment."

"Thanks," Monroe said, dryly. "So what are your concerns?"

"Harry's our friend," Fred began. "You haven't been here a week yet and he's already had more dealings with you than we've have with him in a year. We've had Ministry people snooping around our shops, looking for evidence against _you_, they said, though they haven't found anything we didn't want them to find."

"And those things they didn't find," Monroe interrupted. "Are they things you have concerns about?"

"Maybe," George said, neutrally. "The real question is, _why_ are they so interested in you?"

"Maybe because he's a wizard who's been pretending to be a Muggle for years," Ron suggested, in a sarcastic tone.

"That's probably a good reason," Monroe admitted.

"It's a _very_ good reason," Fred agreed.

"I'm almost surprised we haven't yet sorted out why you did that," George added.

"Because he's hiding something, obviously," Ron growled.

"I'm not hiding anything," Monroe declared. "I don't even know _why_ I was pretending to be Muggle."

Ron snorted derision, and Monroe saw the twins glance at one another. "Are you willing to prove that?" Fred or George asked.

"How?" Monroe asked. "Shall we go ask the Ministry for three drops of Veritaserum?"

"Well, not exactly, but close," Fred allowed. "We've been working on something — similar, shall we say, to Veritaserum. Something that's not Ministry controlled or regulated."

"At least, so far," George also allowed. "We're still working out how to keep it a secret once we begin marketing it."

Monroe sat up straighter. "Are you saying you have a truth serum as good as Veritaserum?"

"Better, actually," Fred said, a bit affronted. "Why duplicate something when you can improve on it?"

"About the only real improvement to Veritaserum would be an effectiveness against perfect Occlumens," Monroe suggested. "Does your purported serum have that?"

"That would be telling, wouldn't it?" Ron sneered. "Are you saying you're a perfect Occlumens? Are you afraid to take the chance?"

"Not without knowing what other side effects there may be," Monroe replied, ignoring Ron's first question.

"Afraid?" Ron suggested.

"Cautious," Monroe corrected.

"Fair enough," George said. "How about this, then? You can take it after we try it out on Ron."

"_What_?" Ron sputtered, outraged. "Me? What're you picking on _me_ for?"

"Well, you _are_ the one who came to us with these claims about Mr. Monroe, Ronnie dear," Fred pointed out. "It seems only fair that we make sure what your intentions are in leveling these charges against the man, don't you think."

Monroe nodded. "It's fair. I agree to those conditions. And that you have to tell me how you made it past my protection spells."

Fred and George looked at one another. "Done."

"Bloody hell," Ron muttered. "Remind me not to bring you two along to my next interrogation."

**=ooo=**

"How do you want to do this?" Monroe asked. He was sitting on the side of his bed, still in his nightclothes. "Will I get to ask questions too during Ron's turn?"

"No," Ron said, flatly.

"Sure," Fred and George said, smiling. Ron shot them a dark look.

"You're going to get to ask _him_ questions when it's your turn, little brother," Fred said, reasonably. "It's only fair. Now hand over Mr. Monroe's wand, and yours too. We might as well make this as even as we can." Ron did not look happy at this, but surrendered the wands without a word.

Monroe watched interestedly as Fred took out a small potion vial and George conjured a small glass filled with water. Ron was watching, too, but his expression was a bit more…worried than Monroe's. As George held the glass out in front of Ron, Fred tipped three drops from the vial into it, and George handed it to Ron.

"Down the hatch," George said.

"Bottoms up," Fred added.

"Drop dead," Ron snapped, but took the glass and slowly drained it. He stared into the bottom of the glass for a moment, then said, "I can taste it."

"You always say that," Fred scoffed. "It's as tasteless as water."

"What do you mean?" Ron looked puzzled. "This is the first time I've ever tried it!"

Monroe caught a quick smile that passed between the twins. "What next?" he asked, watching Ron carefully now. "How long before it goes into effect?"

"He's ready," George said. "Ron, tell us what we're doing here in Mr. Monroe's room."

Ron, who'd been fidgeting and looking back and forth at his brothers, had settled down and was looking straight ahead, seemingly calm and relaxed. "We're here to question Monroe on what he knows about You-Know-Who."

"Why do you think I know anything about him?" Monroe asked.

"You and Harry Potter have been acting strangely since you showed up a few days ago," Ron said, quietly. "And when we had lunch with Harry a few days ago he suggested that You-Know-Who might not be dead."

Fred frowned. "I don't remember it that way," he said, looking from Ron to George. "I thought Harry said that there was no way to test whether Quirrell was dead short of using the Resurrection Stone, and nobody knows where that is, so it's moot anyway."

"Well, it's how _I_ remember it," Ron insisted.

"So what other evidence do you have that You-Know-Who might be alive?" George asked Ron.

"Um," Ron said, then appeared to be thinking for several seconds. "Malfoy thinks he might be, too."

"And how do you know what _Malfoy_ thinks?" Fred wanted to know.

"I went to see him the other day, after I left the shop," Ron replied.

"What?" Fred and George both said, looking at their brother in shock. "Why would you do that?" Monroe was now listening with intense interest.

"Because I was mad at Harry and wanted to teach him a lesson," Ron said.

"Teach him a lesson for what?" Monroe asked.

"Because he's got these two Confunded or something," Ron said, pointing to the twins. "They think he can do no wrong. But Ginny's told me about a lot of his business dealings and if he's screwing the Muggles out of money, he's probably screwing us, too!"

"You don't know how Muggle business works, Ron," Monroe said. "Harry's job as CEO is to make sure his business _makes money_. He's a shrewd businessman, but Muggle business doesn't work like it does here in Diagon Alley. Well, it's similar, but the goblins at Gringotts only instituted seigniorage a number of years ago."

Ron looked at him blankly. Both Fred and George were shaking their heads. "What's _that_?" Fred asked. "I've heard Harry use the word, but he didn't explain it to us."

"What the goblins are doing is altering the amount of gold and silver in their coins, decreasing the ratio of the precious metals," Monroe explained. "Until they started doing this Galleons and Sickles were pure silver and gold, respectively. Harry's told me a little about the goblins and their money. I think Harry has said the ratio is something like 90 percent, and they continue to lower the ratio over time. They are using the gold and silver that doesn't go into coins to speculate in precious metals commodities in the Muggle markets."

George's eyes narrowed. "That sounds like the goblins are using metal that should be in our coins to make themselves richer."

"Technically," Monroe agreed. "But they are also increasing the wealth of the Ministry of Magic compared to other Wizarding communities, the ones that don't use goblins to manage their gold and silver. In the Muggle market the value of one Galleon is worth about fifty to fifty-five British pounds, not five, which is the normal exchange rate at Gringotts.

"Wizarding Britain becoming more solvent is also good for Muggle Britain as well, as long as they speculate wisely with their own gold and silver."

Fred and George looked at each other again. "Could this 'seigniorage' help us increase our profits?" Fred asked, shrewdly.

"No," Monroe said. "You can't mint coins." The twins' expressions fell. "But you can still spin money by providing better product than your competitors. I assume no one else is in the Muggle electronics business yet."

"There are a few new shops trying to copy us," George shrugged. "But they're just trying to reverse-engineer our products and we're careful to put on spellbreakers that activate if anyone tries to fiddle with them. We provide warranty work for up to a year on most of our products, but the warranty is void if you try to figure out how it works."

Monroe nodded; it seems the twins _did_ understand something about Muggle business practices. He looked back at Ron. "Let's get back to business here. Ron, do you _really_ think Harry has your brothers under some kind of spell?"

After a moment Ron shook his head slowly. "No, I don't. But it pisses me off that they think he can do no wrong. He's done a lot of things in his life that he can't be proud of."

"Such as?" Monroe prompted.

"Like…" Ron seemed to grope for something to say. "Well, the stuff he did at school — like trying to get Quidditch changed. Everybody _hated_ that. And our fifth year when he incited everyone to disobey the DADA teacher that year."

"You mean Umbridge?" Fred scowled. "Nobody like her, Ron. She was trying to shut down our magical education system!"

"She was trying to revamp it!" Ron insisted. "We wouldn't have had nearly as much homework once she got things changed around!"

"Because we wouldn't have been _learning_ anything!" Fred snapped. "Thank Merlin that was our last year at Hogwarts, and we could pull out when we did!"

"And what did your General Granger think of what Umbridge was doing?" George wanted to know, throwing a look at his twin as he asked.

"Well, she wasn't happy, either," Ron admitted, a sullen tone creeping into his voice. "But she would've kept on learning on her own, anyway. That's what she _did_."

Monroe opened his mouth to ask a question but Fred held up a hand. "What did you think of Hermione back then?"

Ron blinked several times. "Um, well, I really liked her, o' course. She was very nice for a Ravenclaw — she'd help anyone who would ask her."

"And you asked her for help quite a lot, didn't you?" George asked, smiling.

"Homework was hard!" Ron insisted. "I could barely keep up, even _with_ her help!"

"But that wasn't the only reason you wanted to spend time with her, was it?" Monroe asked, seeing where the twins' questioning was going.

"No," Ron said, in a small voice. "I — I — l-l-l — _liked_ her."

Monroe sat back, intrigued. What was Ron going to think after the potion wore off and he realized he'd spilled his guts to them? "Do you like her now?" Fred and George both stared at their younger brother, keen to hear his answer.

"I — uh — well, yes," Ron said, nodding slightly. "But I married Luna!"

"Do you still love Luna?" George asked.

"Yes," Ron insisted, nodding.

"So how do you feel about Hermione?" Fred pressed.

"I — well, I — guess I…" Ron's eyes fluttered and he slumped forward, asleep.

"Oh drat," Fred said. He looked at George. "Did that happen faster than last time?" he asked.

"I think so," George answered. He looked at Monroe. "Each time we use our serum on someone, they come out from under it faster and faster. We don't know if there's a lower limit to the duration of the potion or not. A larger dose just builds up immunity faster."

Monroe looked at Ron, now slumped forward in his chair. "How mad do you think he'll be when he wakes and remembers you quizzed him about Hermione?"

Fred and George both beamed. "Well, that's another improvement we made over Veritaserum," George said. "Once the serum takes effect you don't remember anything you've said while under its influence."

"Well, that sounds useful," Monroe agreed. "Especially when questioning close family members."

"Yes." Fred glanced at his sleeping younger brother. "He'll wake up in a few seconds and we'll begin the second round of questioning."

Monroe sat quietly, but his mind was working furiously on how to deal with this situation. There were some things that he and Harry didn't want the Weasleys to know. But if this serum was as good as Fred and George claimed (and it probably was — the Weasley twins were pretty sharp) then even _Harry_ might have difficulty beating it. But there might be things he could do, barring Occlumency, that could keep him from spilling the beans.

Ron suddenly sat up, then looked around blearily. "Did I fall asleep?"  
>he asked, rubbing his eyes. "What did I miss?"<p>

"Nothing," Fred said smoothly. "We're about to give Mr. Monroe the serum." George was holding out another glass of water, and Fred tipped three drops of the serum into it and handed it to Monroe.

"Cheers," Monroe said, and drank it down. Ron lost his bleary look and began smiling in anticipation of grilling him.

The change that came over him was very subtle, Monroe discovered. He was beginning to feel the urge to _be honest_. It was almost as if someone had cast an Imperius Curse on him and commanded him to tell the truth. If the Weasleys had found a way to incorporate that curse into a potion…

But you could _resist_ an Imperius if you knew how, if you had the will to do so. And if that was what made the Weasleys' serum so effective, it could be resisted as well. Monroe relaxed, becoming calm and quiet, and waited for the questioning to begin.

"He looks ready," Fred was saying. "Let's jump right in, then. Mr. Monroe, tell us everything you know about You-Know-Who?"

"Not a lot to tell," Monroe answered. "His real name was Tom Marvolo Riddle. He attended Hogwarts from September 1938 to June 1945. He was made a prefect in 1942 and Head Boy in 1944. He won a medal for Magical Merit and for Special Services to Hogwarts in 1943. He worked at Borgin and Burkes for a while after leaving Hogwarts, then disappeared for about a decade, reappearing at Hogwarts in 1956 to ask the new Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Dumbledore did not give him the job, and Riddle cursed the position so that no one teaching it would hold the position for more than a year."

"All of that is pretty boilerplate," George remarked.

"What we want to know," Ron jumped in, "is what you know about You-Know-Who _now_, today!"

"I've just told what I know about Riddle today," Monroe replied, tonelessly.

"That's not what I meant!" Ron snapped. He looked at Fred and George. "Are you sure this stuff works?"

"It has so far," George replied. "Mr. Monroe, do you know anything about You-Know-Who's whereabouts today?"

Monroe shook his head. "He's supposed to be dead, killed in 1992 during a battle with Harry Potter."

"Is it possible he wasn't killed then?" Fred asked.

Monroe stared at him a moment. "Of course it is," he said at last. "But Harry would know more about that than I would."

"Has he said anything about it to you?" George probed.

"We've talked about Voldemort," Monroe admitted, making Ron flinch again slightly. "But only because he accused me of being him, or being possessed by him, due to my time pretending to be a Muggle."

"How did you convince him otherwise?" Ron demanded.

"He poured goblin anti-concealment water on me," Monroe answered. "Nothing happened — Voldemort didn't pop out of me, and I didn't regain my memories of why I was pretending to be a Muggle."

"Do you know what Malfoy suspects about you?" Fred asked.

"The same thing you do," Monroe answered. "That I have some connection with Voldemort."

"You seem to have a lot of people thinking that about you," Ron pointed out. "So why shouldn't we be taking it seriously?"

"I don't know," Monroe shrugged. "Maybe you should, but I can only tell you what I know."

"Right, then," Fred muttered. "So tell us what you remember of your time at Hogwarts. How long did you attend school there?"

"I attended until the end of my second year," Monroe said. "After that my parents and I decided we weren't going to deal with the craziness going on there — Dumbledore's strangeness, the problem with the Defense professor — the person that taught in my second year was a complete idiot, and Harry himself was causing quite a bit of trouble there with school activities like Quidditch."

Fred and George both smiled, remembering The Year Without the Snitch. "Yes, that was a rather unusual year," George recalled. "Were you a Quidditch fan like Ronnie here?"

"That was the worst year for Quidditch _ever_," Ron declared, scowling. "Potter made the game unplayable _and_ unwatchable!"

"I didn't care that much for Quidditch," Monroe said. "But a lot of class time was wasted in discussions of the games — even the teachers would start talking about them! Our learning experience was being eroded. And we never learned anything in Lockheart's classes anyway — the man spent most of the time talking about himself instead of teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts!"

"Sounds like Monroe and Hermione would have made a good couple," Fred muttered to George, across Ron, who glared at him.

"That might be a good question," George smiled. To Monroe he said, "What did you think of Hermione Granger back then? Did you like her?"

"She was okay," Monroe replied. "She was a fellow Ravenclaw, and she was very helpful to other students who weren't as advanced as her."

"But did you _like_ her?" Fred pressed. Ron had a taut expression on his face.

"I was not at Hogwarts to meet girls," Monroe said. "I wasn't even in my teens when I left. Hermione was nice, but she was still a _girl_. At Salem things were different — I was older and the girls were — well, beginning to fill out." Unconsciously Ron exhaled.

"Did you ever get married, then?" George asked.

"I don't think so," Monroe said. "I don't remember much after leaving Salem."

"What _do_ you remember after that?" Fred asked.

"I remember getting the job at _Singularity Today_ magazine," Monroe replied. "But by then I thought I had moved back to Britain from America."

"And you don't remember _anything_ between Salem and then?" Ron asked, skeptically.

Monroe shook his head. "No."

Ron looked at his brothers. "He's lying, somehow."

"No," Fred declared. "The more he tries to avoid telling the truth, the more the potion compels him to do so."

Monroe nodded. "So I'm probably right — you incorporated an Imperius Curse into your truth serum."

Fred and George both raised an eyebrow. "Bravo," Fred said. "Brilliant deduction, Sherlock."

Ron looked horrified. "Why did you tell him _that_? He's going to turn us in!"

"Because he won't remember," George replied. "We also incorporated a Memory Charm into the potion. Mr. Monroe won't remember a thing after the serum wears off."

"What?" Ron's expression had gone horrified again. "And you were going to try that out on me? When were you going to tell me about _that_?"

"We told you every time we gave it to you, little brother."

"_What_?"

"I probably won't remember," Monroe agreed. "But I _do_ have a pretty good track record theses days beating Memory Charms."

"Even if you do remember," Fred mused. "Going to the Ministry won't do you much good, if Malfoy suspects that you're connected with You-Know-Who."

"He might want you more now, especially if he thinks you have a better truth potion than Veritaserum," Monroe pointed out, blinking. He was beginning to feel sleepy — the last stage before the potion wore off. The question was, how much _would_ he remember?

"Oh, we've had rumors circulating around Diagon Alley for years about a 'super-Veritaserum'," George answered cheerfully. "Malfoy will think it's just another one of those. And even if he does send Ministry folk to search our shops again, he won't find anything."

"Too bad we can't chat longer, Mr. Monroe," Fred said, a bit regretfully. "I'd really like to know what Harry sees in you."

"Maybe a kindred soul," Monroe answered, then yawned hugely. "I'm interested in a lot of the same things he is."

"Could be it," Fred muttered. "But I'm not convinced. We may have to do this again sometime."

"Sorry, I won't…_yaaaaaaaaaawn_…agree to this again," Monroe murmured. "Er, before I fall asleep, tell me how you got past my wards."

Fred and George smiled. "We didn't. We used a spell to hide ourselves in your room before you came up to bed," one of them said.

"What spell?" Monroe wanted to know.

"We didn't agree to tell you that," the other said. "And now, good night."

Monroe opened his mouth, but no words came out. His head slumped forward, and he began to snore softly.

"Well, that was a bust," Ron said, chagrinned, as Monroe snored. "We didn't learn anything from him." He put out a hand and pushed Monroe so he fell back on his bed.

"We learned he doesn't know anything," George said. "Even though you insisted he did."

"I was certain he had to!" Ron said, defensively.

"Sure you were." Fred turned to George. "Do you think we can find a way past his wards before he wakes up?"

"Doubt it," George said. "They are rock solid. We may have to wait until he checks out in the morning."

"Bother," Fred said. He shot Ron a dark look for the inconvenience he'd caused them. "Well, let's get hidden and wait it out."

**=ooo=**

James Monroe felt himself awaken, though it seemed he had barely settled into sleep for the night. He didn't open his eyes; doing so would only confirm he was awake, and none of his wards or trip spells were going off; after a few moments he drifted back to sleep.


	15. The Interdict Deciphered

**Chapter Fifteen**

**The Interdict Deciphered**

_Updated_ 6/16/2012

**=ooo=**

August had slouched its way into September, and September blew into October, until the most important holiday on the Wizarding calendar loomed just ahead — All Hallows' Eve, now known as Harry Potter Day. The day was cause for much celebration amongst the magicals of Britain, with dozens of parties where many of the merry-makers dressed up in Harry Potter costumes (school robes, round glasses and in some cases, wigs of unruly black hair).

However, for Harry, the day was still The Dark Lord Killed My Parents Day. Thankfully, though, time had erased much of the sadness of the occasion for him, and he no longer spent the day in hiding, as he had during most of his years at Hogwarts, where he stayed in his trunk and ate snack bars rather than go to the Great Hall for meals. Now he usually immersed himself in work at TBC Enterprises, Ltd., staying in his office until after midnight. Hermione, as Minister of Magic, usually hosted a party for Ministry personnel held somewhere in Diagon Alley — this year it would be at the Leaky Cauldron, so that anyone who didn't feel like going home afterwards could stay there for the night. All of the rooms had been reserved by October 13th this year, and other inns along Diagon Alley were fully reserved as well, indicating a fine turnout for this happiest day of the year.

"You should think about attending," Hermione gently suggested one night, not long before the day arrived. "It's been twenty-five years, after all, Harry — it would do you some good to get out with other wizards and enjoy the celebration. I know it was a sad day for you, but it also gave hope back to many people in magical Britain, knowing that you had defeated Voldemort."

"Yeah," Harry muttered, trying not to snap at his wife, who after all _was_ trying to help him in her own way. "But you know what I think about that, love."

"I know," Hermione smiled, a bit ruefully. "Most people are committing the fallacy of the _fundamental attribution_ error, ascribing Voldemort-killing abilities to you when it was actually your mother's sacrifice of her own life that provided the protection that saved you from Voldemort's Killing Curse, and destroyed him. _Almost_ destroyed him, that is," she added, unnecessarily.

"Right," Harry managed a small smile. The way she said all that usually made him smile; she'd heard him say it it so many times now it must be indelibly inscribed in her memory. As it was in his.

"Well, if you _aren't_ going to change your mind about going, what do you plan on doing tonight?" Hermione asked. "Work in your office?"

It was what Harry usually did these days. But, "I think Monroe and I are going to do some spell research," Harry finally said.

"Ah, I see." Hermione's response had been toneless, but with an undercurrent of disapproval. She wasn't sure what they were researching these days, exactly, but in the past they had been working on controversial subjects like the existence of souls, the source of magic in the world, and things she didn't quite understand, like the Singularity. These were things best suited for the Department of Mysteries, regulated and controlled by the Ministry, not for private conversations held in the home of the Minister of Magic — or worse, in some pub where anyone might overhear. She almost preferred that they meet at Mary's Place, in the specially-enchanted room there that kept conversations private, even though the cost of reserving that room made it unusable by almost anyone, and thus an item of interest whenever it was reserved these days, especially by someone like Harry Potter!

Harry had caught the disapproval in his wife's voice. "Don't worry, love," he told her. "We're not breaking any laws." _At least, not so far_, he added to himself. The Department of Mysteries would be _mightily_ interested in what he and Monroe were researching, thought, if they were to find out.

The Interdict of Merlin.

That spell, possibly the most powerful single spell ever cast, more than 800 years ago, was the major reason magical research was slowly grinding to a halt, and the biggest contributor to the loss of magical knowledge over the past eight centuries. Merlin may have believed that once wizards were forced to share their most powerful spells with one another personally rather than through books or scrolls, that there would be more of a spirit of cooperation amongst magical folk, but he'd obviously had a higher opinion of the Wizarding community than was deserved. The most powerful spells were hoarded and guarded, preserved in books only the author could read, until everyone who knew the spell had died before passing it on and its secret was lost to the Wizarding world.

The Interdict had spread outward from Britain, wherever magic was practiced, until only the most desolate, inhospitable places on Earth hadn't been touched by it. Many magical cultures never even realized the Interdict was in effect until the International Confederation of Wizards established the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy and the details of the Interdict were made public to the world, due in large part to indiscretion on the part of the British members at that time. The news was not well-received, and relations between Britain and many other wizarding communities became strained. To this day Britain, though it was once considered the most powerful wizarding community in the world, was now considered a backwater community. The Ministry of Magic, of course, did not share that opinion.

The Big Day finally arrived. Harry spent that day, a Monday, at work as usual, leaving only a little early to avoid anyone asking him on their way out if he was attending the party at the Leaky Cauldron that year. At home, he immersed himself in a book until Hermione arrived home from the Ministry to change for the party.

"Still not going?" Hermione asked from the bedroom as she changed.

"No," Harry said, still reading his book. "I don't think life in Wizarding Britain will grind to a halt, do you?"

"I hope not," Hermione agreed, smiling. "Are you and Mr. Monroe having dinner at Mary's Place?"

Harry and Monroe met a couple of times a week to continue their discussions on various matters of import to both of them. "No," Harry replied, putting down the book he'd been reading, a tome on spell research methods from one Remus Lupin. "I thought he and I would eat in tonight."

"Really?" Hermione was taken aback somewhat. "Has he tasted your cooking before tonight?"

"Ha-ha," Harry said, sardonically. "I'm having Ginny pick up something for us before she goes home."

"She's still at work?" Hermione gave him a look from the bedroom door. "You slave-driver."

Harry put up his hands. "Hey, I'm not forcing her to stay."

Hermione looked solemn. "Well, from what she's said to me, she and Dean have been going through a rough patch for the past few months."

"She hasn't said anything to me."

_Well, she wouldn't_, Hermione thought to herself. She knew well enough that Ginny had nursed feelings for Harry for a long time now. But Harry seemed oblivious to it, so Hermione had let that sleeping dog lie. She picked up her wrap. "You and Mr. Monroe have a nice time tonight with your 'research.' I should be home about one or so."

"Have a nice time tonight," Harry said, as Hermione walked over and pecked him on the mouth. Smiling, she rubbed Harry's shoulder then made her way down the corridor that led to the anteroom where their private Floo entrance was, taking it to the first floor so she could walk outside and Apparate to the Leaky Cauldron.

It was really too bad she couldn't get Harry out more these days, Hermione thought to herself as she tapped the door leading from the first floor Floo room, silently casting _Alohomora_. He was getting too wound up in his magical research with Monroe. Not really a bad thing, she admitted to herself; who knew, they might actually come up with something useful. She closed the door behind her, relocking it with _Colloportus_, and made her way to the exit of the TBC Building.

**=ooo=**

James Monroe walked briskly through the darkening streets of London, heading toward Harry's apartment above his business offices. He could have Apparated to the building in a moment, but walking gave him time to think. He'd had to do a lot of thinking lately, what with all the discussions they'd had over the past three months, three months of effort that they had very little results to show for.

Not that a lack of results was discouraging — concepts such as where magic had come from and whether man had an imperishable soul had been debated for decades and centuries; it wasn't like he or Harry were going to solve them in three months! Their discussions had given them both a lot to think about, things both Muggle and magical, and the time had passed quickly.

"Why hello!" Monroe looked up to find Ginny Thomas walking beside him, carrying a large sack from a nearby wizarding café. "I wondered if I'd see you while I was out getting dinner," she continued, smiling at him.

"Hello, Ms. Thomas," Monroe nodded, smiling as well. "What are we having tonight?"

She held up the bag. "Sandwiches from Mo's. I've got several kinds in here — Diracawl and crisps, chip buttys with bacon or sausage, and stoat rolls. Oh, and I got a couple of Dirigible Plum and sprout sandwiches, in case you or Harry are feeling vegetarian today," she added.

"Sounds tasty," Monroe commented, a hint of irony in his voice. They arrived at the TBC Building and he opened the door for her, then followed her across the lobby to a hallway were they would take the private Floo connection up to Harry and Hermione's apartment.

Just at the hallway entrance they ran into Hermione herself coming out. "Oh, I see dinner's here," Hermione said, smiling at them.

"Hi, Minister," Ginny said with a grin. She always called Hermione "Minister" when they first greeted one another. "Off to the party?"

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "I tried to get Harry to go this time, but he still won't…" She turned to Monroe. "I don't know if Harry has told you what today is…"

"I've gathered," Monroe replied. "It's all over wizarding London — Harry Potter Day. This is the first time I've actually been around, of course — they didn't celebrate it in America. What's-His-Name wasn't that big a deal over there, though it made a lot of people happy when Harry took care of him."

Hermione nodded perfunctorily, as if distracted, then smiled at Ginny. "Are you and Dean coming to the Cauldron for the party tonight?" she inquired.

"I wish," Ginny said, ruefully. "Dean's working late tonight." She pointed upward. "He's still up there, somewhere. I brought a couple of sandwiches for him, though he sometimes gets so busy he works right through supper."

"Ah," Hermione put on another perfunctory smile. "Well, you both are welcome if you decide to attend — we'll be going until well after midnight, if history is any indication. And you as well, Mr. Monroe — if you can get Harry to come with, or even if you can't, we'd love to see you there."

"I'll keep it in mind," Monroe replied, with a nod of thanks. "If we finish our discussion early it would be interesting to see what a Harry Potter Day party is like."

"I'm off, then," Hermione waved at them then continued across the lobby and out the main doors, as Monroe and Ginny walked down the hallway, stopping in front of a door marked Building Maintenance.

Ginny slid her wand out and tapped the door knob, muttering "_Alohomora_," as the knob made a loud _click_. Monroe opened the door for her and they stepped inside the room containing only a stone fireplace with a walnut mantelpiece. Taking a pinch of powder from a bowl on the mantle, Ginny tossed it into the fireplace. Emerald flames blazed forth from the hearth and Ginny stepped into them, saying "Potter-Evans-Verres private entrance!" and disappearing.

Monroe duplicated her actions, appearing several seconds later in the anteroom of the Potter residence. Ginny was waiting for him at the door. Together they walked down the hallway adjoining the antechamber with the Potter residence.

Harry looked up as they walked in, then marked his place in _Spell Research Methodologies and Practices_ and put the book aside. "Good," he said. "I'm starving! What did you bring us today?"

"Mo's," Ginny replied, setting the bag on the dining room table and taking out several wrapped sandwiches and bags of chips and crisps. "I got something for Dean, too," she told Harry.

"Aren't you two going to the party at the Leaky Cauldron?" Harry asked, curiously. "I thought you went every year."

Ginny shrugged as she pointed her wand, summoning bottles of butterbeer from the kitchen. "He wanted to work tonight," she said, indifferently. "I wasn't going to argue with him."

Monroe and Harry glanced at one another. That phrase was one Ginny said more and more often these days; she and Dean were seldom seen together these days, at work or anywhere else. Neither of them had mentioned anything to her, however — to Harry it was part of her personal life, and while he and Ginny had been close for a while back in Hogwarts, it had never developed into anything. Monroe, for his part, considered it none of his business.

"So what are you two going to talk about tonight?" Ginny asked, changing the subject.

"More of the same, probably," Monroe put in.

"In other words," Harry elaborated, "whatever comes to mind, most likely."

Ginny nodded, looking thoughtful. "D'you mind if I listen in for a while?" she asked. "I'll bring Dean his sandwich later, when he's more likely to be hungry."

Ginny had never stayed before. Harry glanced at Monroe, who made a _It's-your-call _shrug. Harry glanced at his watch. "It's nearly six," he said. "He's probably hungry by now." He sat down at the table across from Monroe, who'd already taken a seat there.

Ginny handed Harry a wrapped Diracawl sandwich, his favorite. "He might be," she admitted. "But unless he's starving he'll want to finish his work first, and he might forget all about food until he gets home. I'd rather bring him his meal when he's hungry enough to eat it right then."

Harry nodded with a shrug; Ginny knew Dean better in that regard than he did. Harry himself usually paid little attention to food, especially during these discussion meetings with Monroe. The discussions were always much more fascinating that wondering where or when they'd be eating on those nights. "What _were_ we talking about the other night?" he asked Monroe.

"The Interdict," Monroe replied. He knew Harry remembered exactly what they'd been talking about; he rarely forgot anything about their discussion, being able to pick up precisely wherever they'd left off when they ended a discussion for the night.

"Which is what?" Ginny asked, looking at them curiously. She had picked up a Dirigible Plum and sprout sandwich and a butterbeer for herself. "I remember reading about that in school, but it's been too long…"

"It was the last spell cast by Merlin," Harry explained. "He is supposed to have cast it in response to the other wizards of his time not working hard enough to prevent the end of the world due to misuse of magic. It's been in absolute force for the past 800 years, unchanging and invincible."

"Oh," Ginny set down the bottle of butterbeer she'd just taken a drink from. "So why are you and Mr. Monroe talking about it?"

"We're looking for a way to beat it," Harry smiled.

"Unsuccessfully, so far," Monroe added, wryly.

"But why even try?" Ginny wondered, looking a bit alarmed. "The Ministry can't be happy about that!"

"What they don't know won't worry them," Harry retorted.

"But surely your wife knows!" Ginny pointed out. "What does she think about all this?"

"Oh, she doesn't like it, not one bit," Harry shrugged. "But unless she hears that we actually tried to _break_ the Interdict, or something of that nature, there's no law that says we can't _discuss_ it."

"For all the good it's done us," Monroe muttered, chewing on a bite of his sandwich. "We've talked about it for months, on and off, and haven't come up with anything. I'm about ready to go back to disproving the existence of the soul."

Ginny looked back and forth between the two men, frowning. "Disproving the existence of the _soul_? You've _got_ to be joking!"

"Oh come on," Harry gently chided her. "You have to know I don't believe in stuff like that!"

"I — I thought that was just part of your Muggle persona," Ginny replied. "Harry, _you're_ the one who kept me from being taken over by that — that _book_."

"I know," Harry nodded. He'd been thinking about that recently as well. When Ginny began attending Hogwarts at the beginning of Harry's second year, she'd found an extra book among the ones her parents had gotten for her at Flourish and Blotts. Harry had later heard, through Hermione, that there'd been an "altercation" at the bookstore between Mr. Weasley and Lucius Malfoy. Hermione and her parents had been there as well; they'd gone with her to see Diagon Alley and happened to run into the Weasleys.

"It was all very interesting," Hermione had reported to Harry afterwards, before the Sorting and Start of Year feast had begun. Mr. Weasley is _very_ interested in non-magical people. He even collects electrical plugs and other things, like batteries and Muggle kitchen utensils." She giggled. "He kept calling electricity 'eckeltricity,' though — it was so charming!

"But then," and her voice had gone serious, "he and Mr. Malfoy were standing almost nose-to-nose, arguing. Mr. Malfoy had taken Ginny's cauldron full of books and was making fun of them — they'd had to buy most of them second-hand — and Mr. Weasley was trying to get them back. They almost came to blows, but Mr. Malfoy finally handed the cauldron back to Ginny and walked out of the store."

Harry and his mother Petunia had gone to Diagon Alley a few weeks earlier, a few days after he'd turned twelve and his letter came with his list for supplies and books for that year. Most of the books on the list were by someone named Gilderoy Lockhart, and Harry later learned that every student at Hogwarts had to buy those same books, no matter what year they were in. He'd taken an instant dislike to Lockhart, who'd somehow managed to get all of his books on the schoolbook buy list for every student in school, which was probably making him a hill of gold. Later, at the Hogwarts feast, it had become quite obvious why that had happened — Lockhart _was_ the Defense professor that year! Such shameless egoism earned Lockhart Harry's instant enmity for the entire school year.

"I remember," Harry told Ginny. "You spent almost the entire year with that diary in your possession, until I found you in that abandoned bathroom, nearly unconscious, and took it away from you."

Monroe had been listening to this exchange intently. "But what about —" his tongue suddenly locked against the roof of his mouth as Harry raised a finger in warning.

"We _don't know_ what was going on with Ginny and that book," Harry said, his words making it clear that he wasn't to say anything about what he knew to Ginny. "And we may never know, unfortunately."

But Ginny had caught Harry's motion and Monroe's sudden silence. "You _do_ know something," she snapped at Harry, accusingly. "What did you do with that book, Harry?"

Harry looked at her for a long moment, seeming to weigh something he might or might not say. Finally he stood and walked slowly from the room, returning with a dark gray stone box. He set it on the table next to Ginny and gestured for her to open it.

Ginny stared at the box, looking almost afraid to open it, but she finally reached out and slowly opened the lid. "Oh, Merlin," she breathed, when she saw what was inside. "It's that book, Harry! But what _happened_ to it?" She lifted the tattered, ripped diary from the box, looking at the hole punched through its center.

"I had to kill it," Harry replied.

**=ooo=**

"_Kill_ it?" Ginny looked at him, puzzled, turning the diary over in her hand. "What in Merlin's name are you talking about? Why would you kill a _book_?"

"It wasn't an ordinary book," Harry said, quietly.

"I gathered that," Ginny said, dryly. "But what _about_ it?"

"You remember that I told you afterward that the book was cursed with Dark magic and that it was negatively affecting you?" Harry reminded her. Ginny nodded, waiting. "Well, it _was_ Dark magic, but that wasn't the full story."

"Go on," Ginny prompted, impatiently.

"T.M. Riddle, the person the book originally belonged to, was Tom Marvolo Riddle, the man who became Lord Voldemort," Harry said, speaking quickly so he couldn't back out halfway through.

Ginny sat back in her chair, staring at Harry in disbelief. "And you never _told_ me that, in all these years?" she nearly shouted at him.

Harry covered his face, half in shame, half so he wouldn't have to look at Ginny. "It wouldn't have helped you either way," he said at last from behind his palms. "I had the book locked away in a special box in my trunk. I never showed it to anyone — not even Hermione."

"She doesn't know about it then?" Ginny asked. It made her happy in some way to think Harry had told her something she hadn't confided to his wife.

"I showed it to her a few months ago," Harry admitted, and Ginny managed not to look disappointed at that news. "But I never told her where it came from — she never knew you originally had it. You never told anyone about it while you had it, did you?"

"No," Ginny shook her head. "It was my most private secret. I wrote a lot of things into it, and it answered me! Did you know it could do that?"

"I found out, eventually," Harry said. "After I had it for a while I took it out of its box for a thorough examination. At one point I had a smudge of ink on a fingertip, and when I touched a page with that finger the ink vanished after a moment. I put a few drops of ink on the page and they vanished, too. I thought that explained why all the pages were blank, so I wrote something in it like, 'My name is Harry Potter-Evans-Verres' on the page. And it told me, 'I'm Tom Riddle, pleased to meet you,' or something like that."

"And Tom Riddle was Vo— You-Know-Who," Ginny said, slowly. "What did he do, create a diary with his memories in it, like a portrait?" She was peering at Harry very curiously. "Come on, Harry, tell me! I want to know the truth!"

Harry looked quite undecided on what to do. Only a handful of people in Wizarding Britain knew the truth about Tom Riddle. And he'd promised Dumbledore he would never tell anyone else about him and what he'd done. But Ginny had been _directly_ affected by what Riddle had done — didn't she deserve to know the truth?

"Riddle," Harry said, hesitating, "found a way to put a part of himself in the diary. It's more than a portrait, it's — more like a bit of him, his — his _soul_, if you want to call it that."

"But you don't believe in souls," Ginny pointed out.

"Which doesn't negate what Riddle was able to do," Harry retorted. "It's very Dark magic — so Dark, in fact, that it was never even _mentioned_ at Hogwarts once Dumbledore became Headmaster. I only found out about it in my sixth year, when I finally told him about the diary and he made me show it to him. He said we had to find a way into the Chamber of Secrets, to learn more about the book. It took nearly my entire sixth year to find out where the entrance was — ironically, it was in that same toilet I found you in during your first year. We went down there and found the skeleton of the Basilisk there, and the Headmaster had me use one of the fangs to stab the book. It spurted black ink-like liquid, almost like I'd stabbed a small animal in the heart, and we heard a screaming sound. And that was it. Dumbledore wanted the book but I told him I was keeping it."

"Harry." Monroe, who'd been listening to all of this, had a bemused expression on his face. "I have a question."

"Shoot," Harry said, glad to be distracted for a moment from this heavy conversation.

"If this diary was a you-know-what," Monroe said, avoiding the word Harry hadn't used yet, "when do you think Riddle made it?"

"What is 'you-know-what'?" Ginny asked.

"I know when he made it," Harry replied, ignoring her question. "He told me while I was writing to him in the diary. He made it during his fifth year, probably sometime in 1943."

"Do you think he made it after he opened the Chamber of Secrets?" Monroe asked evenly.

Harry suddenly looked interested. "Yes, he did! He tried to tell me some cock-and-bull story, about someone having opened the Chamber and students being attacked by a monster until a girl was killed, but it didn't quite ring true. Dumbledore told me that Hagrid was blamed for the murder of Abigail Myrtle back in 1943 and expelled from the school, confirming what Quirrell had told me earlier, during my first year, but neither of them mentioned anything about any other students being attacked."

"I'm remembering what you told me a few weeks ago, about what Quirrell told you about Voldemort and the Monster of Slytherin," Monroe continued with his chain of logic. "You also said that Parseltongue was personal magic of some kind, not the ability of snakes to speak and understand a language."

"Yeah," Harry nodded, following where Monroe was going, and growing more and more excited by the moment. "Yeah! So the Basilisk _couldn't_ have been intelligent on its own! I can't effing _believe_ I didn't make that connection years ago!"

"_What_ connection?" Ginny asked, anxiously. Obviously both men were excited by something they had just figured out. "And you never told me what 'you-know-what' means!"

"Okay, look," Harry turned to her, his gaze boring intently into hers. "You deserve to know this, because you had to deal with what Riddle's diary put you through, but you can't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you. Not Dean, not your brothers, _no one_. Can you do that, Ginny? And be honest," he warned her, "because I'll know if you're lying."

Ginny nodded slowly. "I won't tell anyone," she promised.

Harry, looking into her eyes, believed her. "Okay," he said, and took a deep breath. "Riddle's diary was a Horcrux."

"A what?" Ginny shook her head blankly. "I don't know what that means."

"It's an object that's had a part of a wizard's soul put into it," Harry explained. "As long as that object exists, that wizard cannot be permanently killed. The Horcrux anchors the wizard to the material world. Even if you destroy his body, he remains stuck here. Eventually that part of him that's still here can interact with the world again, especially with the minds of other people. That's how Voldemort was able to take over Quirrell and have him come to Hogwarts to teach Defense, something Dumbledore never let Riddle himself do."

"And that's how the diary was able to affect you," Monroe went on, saying what Harry didn't want to say himself. "Riddle's mind was in the diary, and it was able to manipulate it to reply to you and Harry when you wrote in it."

Ginny looked horrified. "So — so — that d-diary was trying to _take over_ my body?"

Harry nodded, not looking at her. "It almost did, too, before I took it from you. Riddle tried the same thing on me, but I was able to resist him. And I just realized —" Harry looked at Monroe, anger in his face. "I think Dumbledore may have figured out about the diary, and that's why he wanted it destroyed. He didn't want me learning about what Riddle knew —"

Monroe nodded. Ginny was looking confused again. "Knew _what_?"

"Knew that Horcruxes could pass on spells to another living mind," Harry said, both grimly and with excitement continuing to bubble within him. "I killed Riddle's diary without knowing that I could have gotten everything he learned from the Monster of Slytherin! Dammit!"

"But at least we have a way around the Interdict now," Monroe pointed out. "We just need to find another Horcrux."

Ginny shuddered involuntarily. "Why would anyone want to risk something like _that_?" she shouted. "You just told me those things can take over your mind!"

"They can if you don't suspect that's what happening," Harry clarified. "But I can resist them — a Horcrux won't be able to take _me_ over. I just wish we could find one from Salazar Slytherin himself."

"But that's not very likely," Monroe averred.

"I know," Harry agreed, glumly. "It's unlikely anyone before Riddle created more than one of them, even Slytherin himself. And _he_ probably didn't expect the Heir of Slytherin to destroy his Horcrux after learning all of its secrets."

Harry was silent for some time. Then, "But, still…"

"What are you thinking?" Monroe asked, wondering what had occurred to him.

Harry didn't say anything right away. "I don't know," he finally admitted. "It seems like a long shot, but… something's making me think Slytherin was smarter than that. His Basilisk Horcrux might not have told Riddle _everything_ that he did, only what he wanted him to know."

"You think —" Ginny was staring at him with dread. "You think Slytherin _did_ create more than one of these…Horcruxes?"

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "Or, I think it's worth checking out, at least, to see if I'm right about that."

"And how are we going to do _that_?" Monroe inquired.

"We're going down into the Chamber of Secrets."


	16. Back to Hogwarts

**Chapter Sixteen**

**Back to Hogwarts**

_Updated_ 6/29/2012

**=ooo=**

"Harry! It's good to see you again!" Neville Longbottom, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, extended his hand for Harry to shake.

"Good to see you again, too, Neville," Harry said, warmly. He, Neville and Monroe were standing in the Entrance Hall of Hogwarts, which had changed very little in the 25 years since he had first walked through the doors of this school. "I'd like you to meet an acquaintance of mine, James Monroe. James, this is Neville Longbottom, the Headmaster of Hogwarts."

Neville and Monroe shook hands. "Pleased to meet you, sir," Monroe said, politely.

"And you," Neville rejoined. He grinned at Harry. "Still thinking about my offer?" he asked, a hint of cajolery in his voice.

"Still thinking," Harry agreed, laughing. To Monroe he said, "Neville here keeps wanting me to come back to Hogwarts and teach Defense. I tell him I might be able to take it on once I retire from my current job."

All three men chuckled. "So what _does_ bring you here, Harry?" Neville inquired. "I don't imagine you were just 'passing by,' were you?"

"No," Harry said, and put a hand on Monroe's shoulder. "My friend James here, used to attend Hogwarts; he heard that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, and he wanted to see what it looked like."

Neville looked curiously at Monroe. "You attended Hogwarts? What years?"

"I started here the same year Harry started," Monroe answered. "But I only attended the first two years — after that, my parents sent me to the Salem Institute."

"Ah," Neville said, nodding. "Lockhart?"

"Primarily," Monroe replied. "He was horrible."

"I have to agree," Neville said, "but at least he only lasted a year. The year after that we had Remus Lupin, and he did a great job of making Defense education enjoyable. He didn't _quite_ agree with Quirrell's methods, so we didn't have any armies (not that the Ministry would have let _that_ happen again), but he did let us do a lot of practical exercises."

"I enjoyed going to Salem," Monroe said. "I know that Hogwarts is supposed to be the best magical school in the world, but I think I learned a lot more at Salem than I would have here."

"Really?" Neville did not look pleased to hear this. "I may have to owl the headmaster of Salem to discuss the coursework they teach there."

"That would be a good idea, Neville," Harry added. "James here knows quite a bit of magic that is not widely known in the British wizarding community."

Neville was nodding thoughtfully. "I see," he murmured. "Well, if you don't mind, Harry, I'll let you show Mr. Monroe the Chamber. I'm going to review our syllabuses — we may want to make some changes for next year." Neville started to turn away, but stopped. "By the way, if you'd like to remain for today's Quidditch match, it's Ravenclaw against Gryffindor."

A broad grin spread across Harry's face. "Maybe we will, Neville. Which of those two will _you_ be supporting?"

Neville smiled broadly as well. "As headmaster, I don't normally take sides, you understand…"

"Of course," Harry nodded. "Neither do I. I think that no matter who wins, the game will be a bit of an anticlimax, what with the skill of the Seeker being pretty much the deciding factor."

"Heh," Neville chuckled, ironically. "You haven't changed much in 25 years, Harry."

"I yam what I yam," Harry said, mimicking a certain spinach-eating sailor. In his normal voice he asked, "If we do come to the game will it be okay for us to use the teacher's stand?"

"Of course, we'd all love to see you," Neville said heartily. "I'll introduce you to our new teachers. You may recognize some of them from our year. It's been great seeing you again," he said, shaking hands with Harry, and Monroe as well. "You, too, James," he said.

"Thanks, Neville." Harry and Monroe watched as Neville hurried up the main staircase, back to his office.

"Nice fellow," Monroe remarked. "He was in your army as well during first year, wasn't he?"

"Yeah," Harry replied. "He was pretty good, too, once he got over his initial insecurities. I think being in Hufflepuff exposed him to a lot of people willing to help him — that did a lot to build his confidence in himself."

"I don't think he was too happy when I told him about Salem," Monroe said.

"Maybe not," Harry shrugged. "But he'll have a talk with the headmaster of Salem; and who knows, maybe education here at Hogwarts will get even better than it is now."

They were getting looks from students passing through the Entrance Hall — Harry had noticed it before, while they were talking with Neville, but the looks had been much more discrete while they were with the Headmaster. Now, students were openly staring and whispering with one another, trying to figure out who he and Monroe were and what they were doing at the school.

"We might as well do what we came here for," Harry said softly. "I'll bet there's already a dozen rumors about us flying around the school by now."

They walked up the main staircase to the first floor, then found the nearest staircase to the second. As they walked, they passed numerous students in the halls and on the stairs, all of whom stared curiously at them, though none of them seemed willing to stop them and question what they were doing.

At last Harry stopped in front of a large oaken door, next to which was a plaque reading THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS. "Here it is," he said to Monroe.

"A bit of a letdown," Monroe noted, "considering all the trouble you had finding this room in the first place."

"Oh, I don't know," Harry mused. "It was nearly 800 years before anyone found this after Salazar Slytherin built it, during the Founding, and that was over 70 years ago. Dumbledore and I would have never gotten inside, either, except that I could speak Parseltongue."

The two men walked inside. The room was bare, though the floor and walls were scrubbed and clean; there were lit braziers along the walls making the room well-lit. At the far end of the room were its only furnishings — an archway with the words

**Salazar Slytherin's  
><strong>**Chamber of Secrets**

etched into the capstone, and incongruously, an old wooden toilet stall set in the opposite corner. Harry and Monroe walked slowly to the other end; Monroe was looking around interestedly, while Harry kept his eyes straight ahead.

Monroe stared at the stall as they neared it. "This seems a bit out of place, doesn't it?" he asked, then started when a mournful sigh came from inside the stall.

"Who's come bothering me now?" A girl's face translucent appeared in the middle of the stall door, followed by the upper half of her squat body, and she stared gloomily at the two men. "What are you doing in here?" she demanded. "You don't go to school here!"

"We used to," Harry said, pleasantly, ignoring her rudeness. Moaning Myrtle had been with the school a long time now, after all. "I'm Harry Potter, and this is James Monroe."

The ghost's expression changed, and she smiled at Harry. "Harry Potter? I remember you! The other ghosts used to talk about you, a long time ago." She gave Monroe a cursory glance. "I don't remember you at all," she sniffed.

"I wasn't here very long," Monroe told her. "I left after my second year."

"So what are you doing back here now?" Myrtle asked, an edge of suspicion in her voice. "You're not here to change my toilet again, are you?"

"No, we —"

"I hope not!" Myrtle said, rather loudly, and stepped out through the stall door. She was quite short, but still looked a bit imposing when she put her hands on her hips and declared, "They wanted to take my toilet away from me, but I wouldn't let them!" She pointed back at her stall; her arm went through the door. "They had to let me keep my stall, so I'd have somewhere to stay. All the other ghosts have places where they can go — this place is mine, I said!"

"I'm glad you got to keep it, Myrtle," Harry said, sincerely. "It wouldn't have been right to take it away from you."

"Bloody right," Myrtle said, then covered her mouth, giggling. "Oops, excuse me," she said, looking embarrassed. "Ladies shouldn't swear."

Harry took a step closer and gave her a confidential glance. "By the way, Myrtle, could you do something for James and me?"

Myrtle was smiling shyly at him, "What's that, Harry?"

"We need to go down in the Chamber of Secrets and look around a bit," Harry said. "Could you tell any students coming in here that the Chamber is closed for a bit, while we do that?"

"I suppose so," Myrtle said, a sly grin on her face. "Will you promise to talk to me for a while when you come back up?"

"I'd be happy to," Harry said, beaming.

Myrtle clapped her hands. "Ooh, wonderful! I look forward to our talk!" She stood beaming at Harry as he and Monroe entered the archway leading to the Chamber of Secrets.

The stone stairway descended into darkness, but they could see the nearby steps quite easily, as light seemed to surround them as they walked. Though the steps seemed straight, they followed the same twisting, curving descent the original drain pipes had taken beneath the school and lake.

"It's easier to get down to the Chamber now than it was back then," Harry commented. "When Dumbledore and I first went down, we had to figure out where the entrance was and how to open it."

"And it was in a girls' toilet?" Monroe asked, smiling wryly. "I wonder how Salazar Slytherin came up with _that_?"

Harry laughed. "You know, I never thought about that," he chuckled. "Maybe he came up with the first unisex toilet?"

Both men laughed at that. The stairs continued further and further downward. Harry thought back to the first time he'd gone down into the Chamber, with Dumbledore, at the end of his sixth year. After they had come across the tiny image of the snake scratched into one of the copper taps of the last sink in the row, Harry had asked it to open, speaking Parseltongue, and the sink sank right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe that was wide enough for a man to slide into. With Dumbledore's permission, Harry sat on the edge of the pipe then hitched over the side and began a long, twisting trip downward, a trip that seemed to last for minutes, until the pipe leveled out and Harry shot out the end into a dark tunnel that was large enough to stand in. A moment later Dumbledore appeared, having controlled his descent better than Harry had, and the two of them had moved slowly and cautiously down the tunnel.

The tunnel Harry and Monroe entered was no longer dark or murky. Torches blazed along either side of the tunnel. The tunnel seemed to lead away in both directions, but only one way was lit. "What's off in that direction?" Monroe asked, pointing to the left. It was too dark to see anything that way.

"I dunno. Dumbledore and I went to the right when we first came down here," Harry said. They turned in that direction and began walking.

"How far down are we?" Monroe wondered, studying the dark stone walls of the tunnel as they made their way along its curving length.

"A few hundred feet, at least," Harry said. "This tunnel goes underneath the lakebed — a pretty secure place to hide a Chamber of Secrets. When we first got here the walls and floor were wet and slimy. I see they've cleaned all that up."

"Oh, I wanted to ask," Monroe interjected. "What's going on with that ghost we met — you called her Myrtle."

"Her name was Abigail Myrtle," Harry explained. "She had the very bad luck to be in the girl's toilet when Riddle brought the Monster up to the school for his first victim. She saw the Basilisk and died; Dumbledore thought that her murder was used to create Riddle's diary Horcrux."

"What happened after that?" Monroe asked, curious.

"It was hours before anyone found her body," Harry continued. "It started a panic among the students, and the headmaster at the time, Armando Dippet, began looking for the person, or I should say _monster_, responsible for her death. Eventually one of his star pupils, Tom Riddle, told him that one of the other students, Rubeus Hagrid, was hiding a monster beneath the school. He told Dippet he confronted them but the monster escaped, fleeing into Hogwarts Forest. Well, that was just what Dippet needed — a scapegoat, though he didn't realize that's what Riddle had planned. They expelled Hagrid and the Ministry snapped his wand. Dippet declared from then on entry into the forest was forbidden. He did allow Hagrid to stay at the school as its groundskeeper, on the recommendation of Albus Dumbledore, the Transfiguration professor at the time, I think the idea was that Hagrid would be able to control the Monster should it appear again."

"But if Hagrid _had_ been the one controlling the Monster," Monroe pointed out, "the killing could have started all over again. Wouldn't Dippet have thought of _that_?"

"Well, I got the impression Dippet held Dumbledore in high regard," Harry explained. "He was probably happy just to keep the school from closing."

"But he didn't find the Basilisk, did he?" Monroe surmised. "It was back in the Chamber by then."

"Or dead, most likely," Harry suggested. "At one point in first year Quirrell hinted that Voldemort would have destroyed the Monster after he'd learned all of Salazar Slytherin's secrets from the Horcrux in it."

Monroe nodded. It was a lot easier to kill a living Horcrux than an inanimate one — it took Basilisk venom or Fiendfyre to destroy an inanimate Horcrux, but you could kill _any_ living thing with Avada Kedavra. "But," Monroe pondered. "It seems like Slytherin should have considered that his heir would do something like that, and taken further steps to preserve himself."

"I agree," Harry said. "And I hope we're about to find that out." They stopped at the end of the tunnel. Before them was a large opening, as if part of the wall had been removed. A greenish glow shone from the room beyond.

"The Chamber of Secrets," Harry said. They stepped slowly through the doorway, into a long chamber with tall stone columns on either side, entwined by large carvings of serpents. The room was well-lit, but the greenish light gave an eerie hue to the columns and dark stone walls behind them. Above them, the ceiling was high enough to be lost in darkness, beyond the reach of the greenish glow.

As they approached the far end of the Chamber, an enormous stone statue came into view, of Salazar Slytherin himself. The statue was so tall that its face was almost lost in the blackness of the ceiling. The face was ancient-looking and vaguely monkey-like, with a long beard that reached almost to the bottom of its robes. It stood upon two huge feet, spread wide enough apart that a man could walk between them without ducking.

"Well," Harry asked, after nearly a minute of studying the statute, "what do you think?" He glanced over at Monroe, who was looking at the gigantic stone image as well.

"Hmm," Monroe thought a moment. "Did you and Dumbledore search for any hidden artifacts or secret rooms, the last time you were here?"

"If he did, he didn't find anything," Harry replied. "Or, he didn't tell me."

"We may not find anything," Monroe mused, looking around. "Slytherin may have built this Chamber specifically for the Monster, to preserve his knowledge for the day when his heir would return and claim it. Voldemort is supposed to be the first Dark wizard to split his soul more than once. And you've accounted for all of his Horcruxes."

"Maybe not," Harry disagreed. "What if he created more than _two_?"

Monroe looked doubtful. "Creating a Horcrux makes your — well, your 'soul' less stable, more prone to irrational behavior. At least, that's what the few books that talk about them say."

"But if you're right, and Salazar Slytherin made the Basilisk a Horcrux," Harry continued, "then he might have considered making another one as a 'backup,' like Ginny suggested. That's what I'm hoping."

"Assuming that's true, would he have hid it here?" Monroe wondered. "Putting both Horcruxes in the same place is a lot like putting all your eggs in one basket."

"True, but if Slytherin expected the Chamber to be found by his Heir, and no one else, he might have hidden it here while the Monster might have made him think it was Slytherin's only Horcrux. The Chamber remained a secret until Dumbledore and I finally found it in 1997."

Monroe looked around the Chamber again. "I guess we ought to poke around a bit, see if we can find something — though I'd guess most of the students who've been down here have tried that already."

"Except I doubt they knew some of the spells we do," Harry pointed out. "Let's have a go then, anyway."

Both men walked around the chamber, running their palms over the dark stones in various places, studying each of the serpentine columns for any peculiarities or unusual notches or marks, anything that might have indicated a secret knob or lever. They found nothing of that sort, but —

"Do the walls feel strange to you?" Harry asked, as Monroe was checking around Slytherin's giant stone feet, looking for hiding places or magical triggers. He was running his hand slowly over the smooth dark stone, stone that reminded him of the old stone that made up the chamber of the Wizengamot.

"Strange how?" Monroe asked, coming over.

"I don't think they should feel this warm," Harry said. "It's not a spell added by the Headmaster — I would feel that. The stones themselves seem to be giving off heat."

"Yeah," Monroe said, touching the stone wall. "I feel it, too." He shifted his hand on the surface, moving along it. "And it seems to be slightly warmer near the front of the Chamber."

Both men moved along the wall until the corner, then moved along the front wall until they were nearly behind the enormous statue of Slytherin. The wall was even warmer back here, and when Monroe touched one of the statue's feet, he found it equally warm.

"Why wouldn't someone have noticed this before now?" Harry muttered, almost to himself. "I would have told a professor if I'd found something like this down here!"

"It's not that much warmer than the ambient temperature down here," Monroe decided. "And I doubt if any students spent much time running their hands along the walls. Most likely, they were casting detection spells or using Sneakoscopes or Foe Detectors to look for Dark magic."

"But if all the Dark spells Salazar wanted to pass on were bound up in the Basilisk Horcrux, and Voldemort destroyed it once he'd taken all its spells, they wouldn't have found anything," Harry concluded. "Dumbledore got rid of the Basilisk skeleton before they opened up the Chamber."

"I was surprised it was ever opened at all," Monroe said candidly. "Whose bright idea was _that_?"

Harry smiled. "Mine," he said, wryly. "I thought it would do a lot to demystify who Salazar Slytherin was, and make him and maybe more of the Slytherin students more approachable as people instead of being the least appreciated Founder and House."

"How'd that work out?" Monroe asked, interestedly.

"Not too bad," Harry said. "Slytherin alumni tend to be more cooperative, less devious these days. Of course, you've still got someone like Draco Malfoy, but he's old school Slytherin and trying to become Lord Malfoy so he can take over his father's business empire and be the de facto Chief Warlock of Britain."

"I suspect Remus Lupin would have something to say about that," Monroe snorted.

Harry was smirking. "Oh, I'm sure neither Malfoy nor his father likes the idea that a former werewolf was elevated to the Line of Merlin Unbroken."

"Right," Monroe agreed. "Okay, back to the matter at hand. If there is a Horcrux hidden somewhere in this room, maybe even inside this statue, how do we find it?"

It was a pretty problem. Horcruxes were made _not_ to be found; they emanated no magical aura or signature at all, unless you were right next to them or touching them, and even then you had to be actively looking for it.

"Salazar might have hidden another Horcrux in the Basilisk's lair," Harry hypothesized.

"I thought _this_ was the Basilisk's lair," Monroe said, indicating the Chamber itself.

"I did too, when we first found the place, but Dumbledore pointed out that there were no skeletons or droppings in this room. It was damp and slimy back then, but it looked like the Monster nested somewhere else," Harry recalled. "That's why it's strange that there are hidden entrances or exits anywhere — where did the Monster sleep, if not in this room?"

"Perhaps we just haven't found one yet," Monroe offered. He pointed back at the statue. "It seems like the most likely location for a hidden entrance is somewhere around old Slytherin himself."

Harry looked back at the entrance to the Chamber. "I hope Myrtle isn't in a hurry for that chat with me."

**=ooo=**

Ginny looked up from her menu as Ron approached the café where they'd agreed to have lunch. "Hi," she said, then went back to looking at the menu.

"Hey," Ron said, sitting down across from her. "How's it going?" he asked, unenthusiastically.

"Not really going," Ginny shrugged, then tossed the menu on the table. She pointed to a glass in front of Ron. "I ordered you a gillywater."

"I see it," Ron said, but he didn't look that interested in it.

"What's wrong with you?" Ginny asked, frowning. "You're acting like somebody killed your pet rat."

Ron made a face. "Ha-ha," he said. "It wasn't _my_ rat, it was Percy's."

"He was going to give it to you for your first year at school."

"Because Mum and Dad were giving him a pet _owl_," Ron reminded her. "At least I got one, too, after that mess was over with. And _why_ are you bringing it up, anyway?"

"Just joking," Ginny waved off his snort of disgust. "Trying to get your mind off whatever's got you in such a foul mood."

"Aaaah," Ron sat back, looking frustrated. "It's just been a bugger at work lately, Fred and George are on my arse to finish a new product, it's not being cooperative. I need a holiday."]

"So do it," Ginny agreed glumly, sipping her own gillywater. "Fred and George wouldn't mind too much. But good luck on that when Harry Potter-Evans-Verres is your boss," Ginny gestured to herself.

"Yeah," Ron muttered, thinking something else entirely about Harry Potter. So far his efforts to have the Ministry investigate Potter for illegal magical activities had come to naught. The man was just too slippery. Ron wondered why his sister couldn't see that. Or maybe she just _wouldn't_ see it. Or even worse —

"What're you looking at?" Ginny asked, staring at him. She looked down at her blouse. "Did I spill something?"

"No." Ron waved a hand dismissively. "It's nothing. So, er — how _has_ Harry been doing lately? What's he been up to?"

"I don't want to talk about Harry," Ginny said, firmly. "I wanted us to have lunch and just find out what you've been up to lately — I haven't seen much of you in the past few months. And what I'd _really_ like to know is, where's our server at?" Ginny craned her neck looking into the café's interior, searching for the girl who'd brought their drinks.

"Fine," Ron said, now wondering just how much Ginny knew about Harry's illegal activities. She _was_ his personal secretary, after all. "So we won't talk about What's-His-Name, then. I'm sure he's so busy at work that he hasn't had time to do anything else."

"Not really," Ginny shook her head. "He's cut his hours back quite a bit lately. And he's — Oh, hello!" Their waitress had appeared to take their orders.

Ginny ordered a salad with chicken and dressing. Ron, who hadn't even glanced at the menu, ordered a ham and cheese and crisps. The waitress thanked them and went back inside to place the order.

"He's what?" Ron asked, as the waitress left.

"What?" Ginny looked up at him, distracted. "Who?"

"Harry!" Ron said impatiently. "What'd he do beside cutting back his hours, you were saying —"

"Ron, I told you I _didn't_ want to talk about Harry," Ginny said, annoyance creeping into her voice.

"Oy," Ron muttered. "Fine, then."

"Oh, it's nothing, anyway," Ginny waved a hand airily. "He's been off with that Monroe fellow, they talk a lot of magic when they get together."

"Really?" Ron leaned forward, looking interested. It was the best way he knew to get his sister talking — start asking questions like you're really interested. "What kind of magic do they talk about?"

"Oh, really weird stuff. Like the Interdict of Merlin, they think it's slowing down magical progress. And whether wizards have souls or not."

Ron shook his head. What kind of crazy talk was this? "Of _course_ wizards have souls! We all _know_ there's a wonderful existence waiting for us after death, one where we'll see everyone we knew when we were alive!"

"Well, they don't think so," Ginny muttered matter-of-factly. "I don't see how they can discuss this stuff all the time. Hell, I don't think I've picked up a book on _magic_ since I left Hogwarts!"

Their meals arrived, ironically much more quickly than it had taken the waitress to take their order. Ron immediately tucked into his sandwich — he was famished after dealing with Fred and George all morning; Ginny's lunch invitation was a welcome opportunity to get away from them for a while. Ginny ate her salad quietly, almost mechanically, waiting for Ron to finish his sandwich, which took only a minute or so.

Ron looked up from his plate. "Still a bit hungry," he said, unsatisfied.

"Get another sandwich, if you want," Ginny suggested, a forkful of lettuce and dressing held in front of her. "I'm buying today."

"You don't have to —" Ron began.

"I invited _you_, remember?" she stopped him. "Go on, have another."

The waitress was coming outside at that moment. "How are your meals?" she asked.

"Great," Ron said. "I'll have another one." He pointed to his empty plate.

The waitress nodded and looked at Ginny. "Anything else for you, ma'am?"

"I'm fine," Ginny muttered, and the waitress went back inside.

Now that Ron had some food inside him, he was ready for more information on Harry. He leaned forward on the table and asked, "So how d'you know what Harry and this Monroe bloke have been up to lately?"

"I don't, really," Ginny said, picking at her salad. "Monroe shows up at the office a few days a week after work hours and he and Harry either go somewhere to eat or have me pick up something for them if Hermione's going to be out late. I just happened to stay a few days ago and they didn't seem to mind." She laughed, remembering. "They got so wound up discussing stuff that they decided they had to go back to Hogwarts and see the Chamber of Secrets again. I think they were going this morning, since it's Saturday."

Ron blinked. "The Chamber of Secrets? Why would they want to see _that_? The last I heard of it, just before I left Hogwarts, the Slytherins were demanding that the school make it their new common room and dorm area."

Ginny shrugged. "That didn't work out. McGonagall wouldn't approve it — said the Chamber was too small for those kinds of changes. They opened it up so students can go down and look around, see that ginormous statue of Salazar Slytherin."

"Did you go down there when it opened?" Ron asked, deliberately not smiling as he asked.

Ginny shot him a dangerous look. "_No_," she said, emphatically. "Don't you start up with _that_ mess, Ron!"

"We're even then," Ron said, with a thin, sardonic smile, almost immediately wishing he hadn't said anything, because Ginny really did have an awful time when she first came to Hogwarts. Normally a cheerful, gregarious girl, Ginny had become moody and withdrawn during her first year. She would disappear into her dormitory after classes, skipping meals, and she avoided her brothers for most of the year. For Ron, it had felt like Ginny had died in some way, because on the rare occasions he saw her during the year, she wouldn't say anything about her classes or any friends she'd made. She acted like she was someone else entirely. Fortunately, by the end of the year she had snapped out of it, and had become talkative and friendly; she even sat with Harry and Hermione on the trip home from Hogwarts, acting like she wanted Harry to notice her, which was much more like the Ginny he knew, the girl had been dying all summer before her first year to "meet Harry Potter," to Ron's dismay at the time.

Ginny dropped her fork into the half-empty salad bowl. "Well, I should get back to work," she said, standing as she dropped several Galleons on the table. "Oh," she added, "keep what I told you Harry and Monroe are doing to yourself, okay? I sort of promised I wouldn't tell anyone."

"Don't worry," Ron said, and pinched his lips. Ginny smiled, waved and walked up Diagon Alley toward the exit.

Ron watched her leave, thinking about what she'd told him. So Potter and his new crony went to visit the Chamber of Secrets in Hogwarts, huh? Yeah, that didn't sound good at all. He was going to have to put that in another anonymous letter to the Ministry and hope they took it seriously this time. It was something the Ministry could check on, at least. Already planning what he would say in the letter, Ron stood and headed back to the shop, hoping Fred and George would leave him alone long enough to for him to grab an Anony-Quill and compose an owl post to Malfoy.

**=ooo=**

More than an hour after they'd begun their search, Harry and Monroe had still found nothing hidden within Slytherin's statue. "The only thing," Harry said, as they stood in front of it afterwards, "is a faint residuum of magic around its mouth and jaws. As if it had become animated and moved them at some time in the past."

They both stared up at the long, monkey-like face, thinking about what that might mean. "Do you think the statue spoke?" Monroe asked.

"It might have," Harry replied. "But no one has reported it speaking since the Chamber was opened."

"Well, he might not have anything to say about that," Monroe joked.

"Probably not," Harry agreed, smiling slightly. He opened his mouth slowly, then shut it. Then opened it again, imagining he was the statue. What would Slytherin's statue have said to his Heir?

Harry's mouth snapped shut. "That's _it_," he breathed, snapping his fingers. Then he looked at his hand and smiled. "Maybe he didn't say anything," he told Monroe. "But maybe something did _come out of his mouth_."

Monroe's eyes widened in realization. "Of course," he said. "The _Basilisk_."

"The statue is large enough to hold it," Harry said, looking up at the face again. "And it would be a warm, dark place. Once Riddle found this place, he would have to work out where Slytherin had hidden the Monster; a final test, perhaps. And Slytherin would want to be sure that the person that found this Chamber was his Heir."

"You're suggesting that the statue might respond to Parseltongue," Monroe surmised. "Why don't you try it?"

"Won't work," Harry shook his head. "Dumbledore told me, after Voldemort was finally destroyed, that I probably wouldn't be able to speak Parseltongue anymore. I haven't even tried since I left Hogwarts."

"The worst thing that can happen is you fail," Monroe pointed out.

"True enough," Harry agreed. "Let's have a go."

He stared up into Slytherin's face, trying to imagine him as a snake. Harry had never been able to speak Parseltongue unless he was looking at a snake, or an image of one. "Say something, Salazar Slytherin," he said, then looked at Monroe.

"I heard English," Monroe shook his head.

"Yeah," Harry muttered, gruffly. He needed a visual aid. He turned, looking at a nearby stone column with the image of a serpent carved round it. "Say something, Slytherin!" he said again, loudly.

"Nope," Monroe said. "Dumbledore may have been right."

"I don't know how we're going to figure this out, then," Harry grimaced in frustration. "I don't know _anyone_ who speaks Parseltongue these days. Let me have one more go."

Harry closed his eyes, visualizing the image of a snake in his mind's eye. In fact, he was visualizing Nagini, Voldemort's pet snake, a large, sickly-green venomous snake that was nearly a dozen feet long. The snake had been put down after Voldemort's death in 1998. Harry could see the large, dangerous fangs, hear the snake's hissing as it reared upward, nearly as tall as a man. The mental image itself was disconcerting — Harry was glad the thing wasn't around anymore!

His eyes still closed, Harry tilted his head upward, toward the stone face of the statue, and _hissed_, "_Speak to me, Salazar Slytherin_!"


	17. Harry's Head

**Chapter Seventeen  
><strong>**Harry's Head**

_Updated_ 7/15/2012

**=ooo=**

A low rumble began within the Chamber, seeming to come from the immense stone statue of Salazar Slytherin. Harry and Monroe both stared anxiously as the eyes seemed to focus on them and the stone lips slowly parted.

"_Who_…_disturbs_…_Salazar_…_Slytherin_?" the statue spoke slowly, grindingly, though the lips seemed hardly to move. It spoke in Parseltongue; Monroe heard only a low, rumbling hiss, and looked at Harry for enlightenment as to what had occurred.

"It asked who has disturbed him," Harry muttered out of the side of his mouth.

"Is it a Horcrux?" Monroe asked, his voice equally low.

"Don't know," Harry replied. "But I think it must be — we didn't detect any magic that would animate a stone statue."

The stone eyes were moving slowly, laboriously to look at Harry. "_You_…dare…_return_…_here_…" it hissed at him. "_After what_..._you did_…_to me_?"

Harry blinked, momentarily nonplussed. "_I did nothing to you_," he told the statue.

"_You lie_," the statue rumbled. "_You_…_desstroyed my_…_Basilissk."_

"Oh," Harry suddenly understood. To Monroe he muttered. "It thinks I'm Tom Riddle. It just accused me of destroying the Basilisk."

"Not a great way to begin a conversation with an 800-year old Horcrux," Monroe whispered back. "Especially one you plan to learn the secrets of ancient magic from."

"Right," Harry agreed. "I have to convince it I'm not Riddle." Harry looked up at the statue. "_I am not the one who did that_," he hissed. "_He wasss destroyed many yearsss ago_." Though Harry still wasn't entirely sure that was true.

"_You lie_," the statue said again. "_I sssee you_…_before_…_me_! _You are_…_the Heir_…_of_…_Slytherin_." And something happened that had not happened in a very long time.

Harry felt his scar _prickle_, a strange sensation like something inside it had _moved_. He clapped a hand over his scar, stunned by the realization of what that sensation might mean.

"What's wrong?" Monroe asked, looking at him anxiously. "You just went white as a ghost."

"I — I don't know," Harry said, putting his hand down. He didn't want to tell Monroe what he'd just figured out, but he might need Monroe's help coming up with a solution to this problem. This very _big_ problem…

"I think it's time to leave," Harry said abruptly.

"_Leave_?" Monroe looked stunned. "You just got it to start talking to you!"

"It thinks I'm Tom Riddle," Harry said, more sharply than he should have. "It's not going to tell me anything until I can convince it otherwise!"

"So — convince it!" Monroe retorted. "Or don't you think you can?"

"_Don't_." Harry gestured warningly. "Don't try any reverse psychology on me, James — I know what I'm capable of!"

"_Why_ does it think you're Tom Riddle?" Monroe wanted to know. "That doesn't make any sense — unless there's something you're not telling me!"

"What would make you think something like that?" Harry demanded defensively.

"For one thing, you freaked out a little after that thing spoke to you in Parseltongue a minute ago," Monroe pointed out. "For another, you're smart and rational enough to know that replying to a question with another question is a sign of evasiveness."

"But it's neither necessary nor sufficient to say I'm being evasive because I answered a question with a question," Harry countered. There was a pause. "However, in this case, you're correct."

Monroe nodded. "Can you tell me?" he asked, trying to let Harry go at his own speed.

"Not here," Harry said. "We need to find someplace private."

"Here, in Hogwarts?" Monroe almost laughed. "The school is full of students — we'd have more luck Apparating to Mary's Place!"

"Not necessarily," Harry said, quietly. "Besides, I might want to revisit the Chamber once we talk about my problem."

"Problem?" Monroe looked worried. "I didn't realize it was that serious."

"It is," Harry muttered. "But before we get to that I've got another problem to deal with — Myrtle is up there waiting for me to come and chat her up for a while, and the only way I can see around that is to make her mad at me so she'll go off and sulk somewhere."

"Women," Monroe said, grinning. "Can't live with 'em, even when they're dead."

"Tell me about it." Harry began walking toward the Chamber exit. "Come on, let's go get it over with so we can find that quiet spot and talk."

**=ooo=**

Ginny Thomas looked up from her book at the knock on the door of her and Dean's London flat, a first story walk-up in a brownstone only a few blocks from the TBC Building. It was just after dinner and the two of them had each settled into their evening activities. "Were you expecting someone?" she called to Dean, who was in his study, writing.

"No," Dean answered. "Are you going to get it?"

"Of course I'm going to get it," Ginny muttered, leaving the book in her chair and walking over to the door. Glancing through the peephole, she saw a sharp, pale chin above a very expensive dark suit and silk tie. "Hell," she whispered to herself, then hurried to the door of Dean's study. "It's Malfoy," she told him, anxiously.

Dean frowned. "What's he doing _here_?"

"I don't know!" Ginny said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. Did he think she could do Legilimency through their _door_?

"Go let him in, I guess," Dean said, putting away his writing. "Let's see what he wants."

Ginny hurried back to the door, pulling her wand as she went. She tapped the doorknob, muttering the key spell to unlock it, then slid her wand back in its special pocket even as she opened the door, giving Malfoy a cordial (but not overly friendly) smile. Behind him loomed his ever-present "guardian" Aurors, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle (Harry called them Malfoy's "minions"). "Why, Head Auror Malfoy!" she said, pleasantly, stepping into the doorway with a practiced motion to keep anyone from trying to look around inside their home. "What an unexpected surprise! What can I do for you?"

"Hello, Mrs. Thomas," Malfoy, his tone equally pleasant. "Sorry to come by unannounced so close to dinner, but I have a few questions for you and your husband."

"Really?" Ginny didn't move. "Concerning what, exactly?"

"I'd rather not discuss it in the hallway," Malfoy said, more quietly than Ginny expected. She thought he'd be trumpeting his presence for all to hear. But then, of course, this was a Muggle apartment building and he would have to be more discrete here than in a wizarding environment. That accounted for his Muggle suit, and Crabbe and Goyle's as well — who, Ginny noted with amusement that did not reach her face, looked decidedly uncomfortable in theirs.

"Who is it, dear?" Dean called, from his study, playing his part.

"It's Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Crabbe, and Mr. Goyle," Ginny called back. "They though they'd pop over for a quick chat."

"How nice!" Draco folded his arms; he'd evidently caught the sarcasm in Dean's voice, just as Ginny had. "Invite them in, dear, and I'll start a pot of tea."

Ginny stepped back and let Malfoy and his two hulking companions into their flat. Malfoy immediately moved to the center of the room, establishing control, while the two Aurors flanked him. "Would you gentlemen like to sit down?" Ginny offered, pointing to a divan and chair.

Malfoy looked around, then nodded and sat down in the chair. Crabbe and Goyle moved to take up position on either side of him. Ginny sat on the divan, leaving plenty of room between her and them, and tried to make herself look comfortable. "What are your questions concerning?" she asked again.

"I'd like to wait for your husband to join us before I begin," Malfoy answered, neutrally. "This will concern both of you."

Ginny nodded and sat quietly, staring at Malfoy, who took out a small notebook and pretended to read and make notes in it. In reality, Ginny could tell, he was studying her as well, watching her reactions to what he was doing. It was a bit of a game (although quite serious in its underlying power struggle) that the Weasleys, as a family, tended to play with Malfoy's Aurors, and Malfoy himself, in the rare occasion they interacted with him directly. Never give the other side any indication that you were surprised or upset by what they did, no matter how much it actually surprised or upset you.

Dean finally arrived, a tea service in hand, with a steaming pot, four cups, and a small plate of cookies. "Hello!" he said, with the expected false cheer that he always displayed when dealing with the Auror Department. "What a surprise to see you this evening!" (_That was subtle_, Ginny thought, ironically.)

"Would you like some tea?" Dean asked, not waiting for Malfoy to say yes; it was a foregone conclusion that he would.

"Please," Malfoy said, proving Dean correct, and for the next minute the only sounds in the room were of tea being poured into cups and the clink of spoons stirring in spoonfuls of sugar and cream.

Draco sipped at his cup and nodded, showing he was enjoying it. In contrast Crabbe and Goyle accepted their tea, grunting a perfunctory thanks then sipping mechanically at their cups without expression. Ginny accepted her cup last from Dean with a thank you she didn't mean, but which nevertheless sounded warm and loving. Dean picked up his own cup and broke the silence. "So, Head Auror, what brings you to our humble home?"

Malfoy took a final sip of his tea, then set his cup down on the coffee table in front of him. "First, I apologize again for the lateness of the hour. I normally would have waited until tomorrow to ask you to come down to the Ministry at your convenience."

Ginny and Dean both nodded neutrally, still waiting for the shoe to drop. Malfoy was not about anyone's convenience except his own.

"However," the Head Auror went on. "I didn't think this could wait until tomorrow." He produced a folded piece of parchment and handed it to Dean. "This is a warrant to search your premises. I brought it here now because I thought both of you should be present, in case we find any Dark devices or artifacts."

Dean tossed the parchment at Malfoy's feet. "You've got to be joking, Malfoy! Why would we have stuff like that _here_?"

Malfoy shrugged. "You work for Potter, and it's been rumored that he likes to collect Dark spellbooks and objects connected to Dark magic."

"That's an old rumor," Ginny snorted. "And _you're_ the one who likely started it in the first place! Besides, you don't even care whether we have anything here or not."

"Oh?" Malfoy looked amused. "What makes you think that?"

"You only brought Crabbe and Goyle along with you," Ginny pointed to Malfoy's companions. If you want this place searched thoroughly you would have brought a lot more men."

"And what if I did, and they're waiting for me to give the word?" Malfoy asked.

"Then you would have swarmed in here like a pack of rampaging pixies before we could do anything," Ginny snapped. "So what do you _really_ want, Malfoy?"

Malfoy chuckled. Behind him, Crabbe and Goyle chuckled reflexively in reply. "Fair enough," he said. "No, I don't expect you to have any Dark materials here.

"But Potter is another matter," he went on. "I didn't start that rumor about his fondness for Dark spellbooks, we've heard for years now from sources across Britain and Europe about deals being made, mostly for anonymous collectors, of course, but the money being paid suggests very deep pockets, and Potter's got that in spades."

"So you're relying on hearsay evidence," Dean said. "That's pretty thin, Malfoy."

"Oh, I have more than hearsay," Malfoy smiled. He produced a mokeskin pouch from beneath his cloak. It was only the size of his palm, but he reached into it and muttered, "Potter file," then withdrew a large leather-bound portfolio filled with parchment sheets.

"What I have," the Head Auror told them, holding up the portfolio, "are letters from a confidential source describing Potter's activities over the past three months, in vivid detail. Sometimes it seems like the person was in the room with Potter. If she hadn't disappeared 25 years ago, I'd suspect Rita Skeeter, as sources in the past have informed that she was an unregistered Animagus with a beetle form."

"What do these so-called 'detailed' letters say about Harry?" Dean demanded, speaking so sharply that Crabbe moved toward him, to push him away from the Head, but Malfoy waved him off.

"The author's anonymous," Malfoy told Dean and Ginny, "but we are investigation possible leads of their source. This is where you two come in. We want to compare these letters to any Potter might have in his possession, to see if they're the same handwriting or come from the same quill."

Ginny give him a look of utter disbelief. "You expect _us_ to help _you_ against Harry? You're barking, Malfoy!"

"You might want to think it through." Malfoy picked up his tea cup and sipped from it. "If Potter has nothing to hide, then you have nothing to lose by helping us determine that."

"Doesn't matter," Dean shrugged dismissively. "Ginny and I don't have access to Harry's house. We can only get into the foyer of his apartment."

Ginny managed not to sigh in frustration. Why_ did you have to say that, Dean_? she thought to herself. _Now Malfoy knows how far we can get into his private residence_!

"And besides," she added, trying to deflect Malfoy's attention from that fact. "You can't go into the private residence of the Minister of Magic without a vote from the Wizengamot." _And you ought to know that_! Ginny added to herself.

"Well, that's interesting, I'm sure," Malfoy said blandly, to both their surprise. "But the search warrant I have here is not for the Potter residence, but for his work offices."

"That's a Muggle workplace!" Ginny protested, with Dean vigorously nodding agreement. "You don't have jurisdiction there unless you suspect Dark items are being stored there or the Secrecy laws are being violated!"

"I see you've been keeping track of the pro-Muggle legislation the Minister been shoving through over the past dozen years," Malfoy said, a sneer in his voice. "Well, that's something my informant talks about, the likelihood that Potter is keeping forbidden items in his secret labs. So I've _got_ jurisdiction."

"But that's just hearsay!" Dean protested, desperately. "You've got to have someone make a formal complaint, not just send in an anonymous letter!"

"Wrong again." Malfoy was looking very smug now. "Dark artifacts are an exception to hearsay, so people can complain without fear of retribution if the identity of the complainant should become known."

"But you can't go into the offices without Harry!" Ginny said firmly. "And we don't know where he is right now!"

"You don't?" Malfoy arched an eyebrow at her. "Can't you ring him up on that little Muggle phone you carry around, and find out where he is?"

"Why would I make your life any easier?" Ginny asked, sarcastically.

"Well, I already know where he's at," Malfoy told her. "There's a rumor running round that he's up at Hogwarts today." Ginny blinked. _How did Malfoy know _that? She knew he and Monroe were going there today, but she'd told no one about that.

No one except — _Ron_.

"And again you're wrong about Potter," Malfoy was saying. "Because I can serve this warrant on any officer of a corporation in order to search any corporate property. And according to the papers that were filed when TBC Enterprises was formed, you and your husband are both officers in Potter's company." Malfoy held out the warrant toward her. "So take this and let's get going," he said, grinning victoriously.

**=ooo=**

Harry and Monroe trudged up the staircase leading from the Chamber, anticipating their reunion with Myrtle with some apprehension. But when they reached the Room Formerly Known as Myrtle's Toilet, she was nowhere to be seen. "Good," Harry muttered as they hurried from the room. "Now I can show you —" He cut himself off as another problem presenting itself: Peeves was whizzing down the corridor toward them, cackling maniacally.

"This way," Harry said, pulling Monroe after him. They dodged around a corner as Peeves' laughter increased in volume. They bolted down the corridor to another turn, which Harry turned down, stopping after a few yards to press a particular knot in the wood of the wall.

A secret door popped open and Harry pushed Monroe inside it, following and pulling it shut after him. A moment later they heard Peeves whoosh by, still laughing. "Olly olly oxen free," Peeves called out, "You can't hide from little old me!" Despite this, they heard him continue move away until his voice faded in the distance.

"Peeves," Monroe said, remembering. "I'm glad we dodged _him_."

"Yeah, he is a pain in the arse," Harry said, taking out his wand and illuminating the passageway they were in. "In second year Fred and George gave me a map of Hogwarts; it was pretty handy for finding ways around the moving staircases and dead ends that would sometimes cut off what had been a normal corridor." He began moving down the passage, with Monroe right behind him.

"I remember the battles we had in the castle back in first year," Monroe said. "You had to stay on your toes or you could find yourself in a corner with enemy troops ready to put you out of commission."

"Right," Harry said. "The Marauders Map helped me figure out how to avoid situation like that. Or it would have, if I'd been able to use it during first year."

"Why was it called the Marauders Map?" Monroe asked, curiously, as they came to an incline in the passage and began moving upward.

"It's what whoever drew it named themselves," Harry answered. "They were called — let's see, it was Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Obviously pseudonyms," he added, unnecessarily. Fred said they found it in a drawer in Filch's office. Once they figured it out it would show them the entire castle and everyone in it. They figured it was part of the Hogwarts security system. You tapped it with your wand and said, 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.'"

Harry looked back at Monroe. "They told me that Dumbledore took the Map from them once, when Hermione was having her troubles with the Malfoys. It was strange but Dumbledore didn't seem to know how the Map operated." He turned back, holding his wand high to look around. "The exit is around here somewhere — ah!"

Harry listened at a wall for a moment, then pushed through into another school corridor. Monroe followed him through and the door closed, seeming to disappear into the wall. You'd never have known it was there unless you'd just come through it, or knew where it was in the first place.

"We're a floor higher now," Harry said, pointing in a direction and walking that way. "But we've still got several more to go."

"Where are we heading?" Monroe asked.

"To the Room of Requirement."

"… I don't think I've ever heard of that," Monroe said, after a moment of silent reflection.

"I didn't learn of it myself until fifth year," Harry said as they began walking up a staircase leading up to the next level. "But I heard several clues over the years that made me realize that there was such a room — oh, bother."

The top of the staircase had suddenly detached from the floor above them and began moving toward the floor below them. "I hate it when this happens," Harry muttered, and reversed course back to their original floor. "We'll have to walk to the other side of the castle to find another staircase to the next floor — _or_," he added, remembering, "we can take another secret passageway a few corridors away that will get us there in half the time."

A few more obstacles popped up as they made their way to the seventh floor; they ran into dead ends, or found corridors jammed with student who were gathered there for unknown reasons. Once they were stopped by two empty suits of armor that ordered them to sing "A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love" before they could pass.

"That's pretty funny, actually," Harry said, parenthetically, as they doubled back. "I was tempted to just cancel that spell but it's too good not to let them go on."

"I'm beginning to think there's a conspiracy to keep us from getting wherever we're going," Monroe complained, after they'd been blocked yet again, this time by a swamp appearing in a corridor as they tried to pass through it. Harry conjured a pole to test its depth and couldn't find the bottom.

"Hogwarts does sometimes act like it's doing things purposefully," Harry agreed, as the pole disappeared from his hand and the two of them turned to find another way. "If I was a little more paranoid I'd think it was testing us to see how much we need to get to the Room of Requirement."

Monroe stopped abruptly. "Do you think that's a possibility?" he asked, when Harry stopped and looked back at him. "There were rumors, even back then, that Hogwarts was…_alive_…in some way."

"I remember them, too," Harry agreed, quietly. "But back then, I just thought that was part of the mystique of Hogwarts, of the Castle the Founders Built. I figured I'd eventually get around to figuring out how this castle worked. As it turned out, though, I never got around to that before I left, and I've been much too busy since then to worry about it." He smiled, then jerked a thumb in the direction they'd been walking. "Until now. Shall we go ask it whether it's alive or not?"

Monroe shrugged a resigned complacency. "Why not?"

Eventually they ascended a final staircase to the seventh floor of Hogwarts, past a statue of Lachlan the Lanky, then along a few more corridors until they came to corner with a window. Turning, they saw a long corridor with only a single tapestry hung up along its length.

"Here it is," Harry said, and they stopped in front of the tapestry.

On the tapestry was an image of Barnabas the Barmy, a sixteenth-century wizard who had earned his nickname, appropriately, by trying to do what the tapestry depicted — trying to teach trolls to dance the ballet.

Monroe was smiling. "I don't think I ever saw this back when I was in school," he chuckled. "It's pretty funny."

Harry shrugged. "I guess I've seen it often enough now that for me, it just marks the location of the Room of Requirement." He turned and pointed to the wall opposite the tapestry. "Right there."

"So how do we get in?" Monroe asked, after staring at the wall for several seconds.

"First, we have to have a real need," Harry explained. "Which we do — I need a private place to talk about what happened in the Chamber of Secrets.

"Second, you have to walk past this section of wall three times, concentrating on what you need."

"That doesn't seem very intuitive," Monroe commented. "It seems like if you needed something you'd just walk past this spot on your way to getting what you needed."

"I thought that, too," Harry agreed. "I've heard some stories about people who've gotten into the Room without knowing what it was. Fred and George told me one time they were trying to figure out where to hide from Filch when they came upon a door here they'd never seen before. They went inside and found a linen closet."

"A _linen closet_?" Monroe repeated, bemused.

"Yeah, go figure," Harry laughed. "The year we had the Triwizard Tournament here I heard Dumbledore tell a story about being up late the night before, looking for a bathroom, and finding a room with a magnificent collection of chamber pots in it. There were a couple of other times as well, like Filch finding a room filled with cleaning supplies when he'd run out."

"So how did _you_ find it?" Monroe wanted to know.

"It was during fifth year, when the Ministry installed Dolores Umbridge as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor," Harry said, his mood beginning to darken as he remembered those days. "Cornelius Fudge, who had been Minister for several years by that time, had become apprehensive about the amount of power and influence Dumbledore seemed to wield amongst the Wizengamot. He tried to get Dumbledore sacked as Chief Warlock —"

"You're kidding!" Monroe exclaimed. "Was he really that stupid?"

"Apparently," Harry replied. "He was probably being egged on by Lucius Malfoy, who must've thought he could swing the votes with his influence. But of course only the Chief Warlock himself can pass on that title to another, and Dumbledore didn't do that until shortly before he died.

"Anyway, Umbridge didn't know the first thing about teaching Defense, so naturally she found a book that didn't require her to teach anything," Harry went on. "_Defensive Magical Theory_, by Wilbert Slinkhard. Pretty much the dullest book I've ever read, and that's saying something.

"Well, after two years of pretty reasonable Defense teachers (even though Professor Moody turned out to be a Death Eater who was trying to kill me in revenge for Voldemort's defeat in 1981) none of us were _at all_ happy with Umbridge — Hermione was practically in fits over her, she was worse than Snape when it came to how badly she treated students — we decided to form a club like the one Hermione did in first year. Only this club would be a secret club, so that Umbridge wouldn't hear about it and order it shut down before it ever got started."

"It sounds like things got interesting around here after I left," Monroe said, a little ruefully. "You actually got Remus Lupin here for your third-year Defense professor."

"Oh yeah, things heated up quite a bit," Harry agreed, solemnly. "A student was killed at the end of fourth year, because of me. Because Barty Crouch spent most of the school year impersonating Alastor Moody, teaching us Defense because he wanted to kill me, but he was so obsessed with dueling me that he wanted to be sure I'd have at least a bare chance of beating him.

"Anyway, we formed this secret club in fifth to teach Defense to the students since Umbridge obviously wasn't going to. I wanted to call it the 'Chaos Legion Defense Club' but everybody else wanted to call it 'Dumbledore's Army' since we were supposed to protect the headmaster's interests at Hogwarts. The only thing we needed was a place to meet that could hold about thirty people without Umbridge or the students who were supporting her finding out where we were."

"Who would have supported Umbridge?" Monroe asked, puzzled. "I'd think everyone would hate her."

"Most of the Slytherin were following her just because she was supposed to be against Dumbledore," Harry said, grimly. "The Slytherins were following us around, keeping tabs on us, breaking up any groups of people they through were whispering things against Umbridge. We couldn't find anywhere in the school where we could meet up for our Defense lessons, until —"

Harry pointed at the blank wall behind him. "I finally began putting together the stories I'd heard from Fred and George and from Dumbledore. There was nothing about the Room of Requirement in any of the histories of Hogwarts, so finally decided to talk to someone who ought to know."

"Dumbledore?" Monroe asked without thinking.

"No, I don't think he realized what he'd stumbled into that night with the chamber pots."

"So who, then?" Monroe wanted to know.

"Well, I ran into Fred and George one day before dinner and they each had a handful of sandwiches. When I asked where they'd got them they said they'd gone down to the kitchens to get a snack since they were going to be busy when everyone else was eating. They told me about house-elves: little humanoid beings with large ears and eyes who serve wizards, apparently willingly, though I never figured out why they would want to." Harry walked over to the bare wall opposite the tapestry and leaned against it. "I thought if anyone would know about a room like the one I was thinking of, it would be them.

"And to make a long story short, they did," Harry finished. "One of them brought me up here and showed me how to get into the room. We used it for several months until one of our members was convinced by someone — I think it was Malfoy — to turn us in. Fudge showed up with several Aurors and was about to haul us all in when Dumbledore showed up and said the whole thing was his idea."

"So they hauled him in?" Monroe guessed.

"Oh, they tried," Harry said, with a grim chuckle. "But he stunned them all and escaped, though I don't think he ever really left the school. Anyway, that's how I know about this room," Harry finished, patting the wall with one hand.

"Well, if I'm ever going to hear what happened between you and old Stone-Face down in the Chamber," Monroe pointed out. "We'd better get inside."

"Right," Harry agreed. He stepped out to the middle of the corridor. "Okay, I'm thinking that I need to get into the Room of Requirement so I can tell you about — aaaagh —" Harry cut himself off as a beeping noise came from his pants pocket.

He fished his phone out of his pocket. "It's a text from Ginny," he said. "She —" he fell silent once again.

"She what?" Monroe asked, after several seconds of silence.

"Bollocks," Harry said, turning the phone around so Monroe could read.

**Malfoy has warrant to search TBC. Taking Dean and me to office now wont wait for u. What do we do?**

"Crap," Monroe said. "What _are_ you going to do?"

"He's not going to find anything illegal at my office," Harry said. "Anything he could conceivably charge me for some type of violation is in my private vault in my apartment, and he can't get into that while Hermione is Minister.

"_But_," Harry continued, "Malfoy knows my offices and my private residence are in the same building. There's a loophole in the law that will let him search my residence if he can find a way into it from my offices. Death Eaters sometimes put private Floo connections between their businesses and their homes so they could transport Dark objects without going through public transportation. So I've got to go make sure everything is secure."

"You want me to go with?" Monroe asked, anxiously. He wasn't too happy with the idea of seeing Malfoy again, especially in these circumstances.

But Harry pointed to the bare wall next to them. "Why don't you see if you can get in the Room? It could be a good exercise for you."

"Okay, but — er, what am I supposed to wish for?"

"You don't wish for anything," Harry said, impatiently. "You think what you need, and walk back and forth in front of this wall three times doing that. On your third time, if you've been sufficiently clear about what you need, a door should appear."

"Okay," Monroe said, taking a deep breath. "I'll have a go. What happens if a teacher or staff member discovers me and asks what I'm doing here?"

"Once you're in the Room," Harry said, taking a mokeskin pouch out of his back pocket. "Nobody else will be able to enter unless they know exactly what you need. You should be fine inside until I get back. I'll signal you when I do."

"How?"

"You'll know it when you hear it," Harry said, shortly. He reached into the pouch and pulled out a full-sized broomstick, with two strange-looking cylinders affixed near the back. They looked an additional bipod, but Monroe wasn't sure what they were used for.

Harry saw him looking. "Don't worry, I'm only flying far enough to get outside the wards that keep anyone from Apparating."

"But — but brooms can't fly inside the grounds of Hogwarts except in the Quidditch pitch!" Monroe reminded him.

"That's what these babies are for," Harry said, pointing to the two cylinders attached to the broom. "They'll carry me over the 'no-fly' zone. You try to get into the Room of Requirement, I'll be back as soon as I can." Harry walked to the end of the corridor, opened the window there and stepped up onto the windowsill, then leaped off the edge, leaving Monroe standing there watching him, mouth open.

Monroe quickly shut his mouth. Nothing Harry did should surprise him anymore. He turned back to the blank wall. "All right, let's see how this thing works," he muttered.


	18. Monroe's Head

**Chapter Eighteen  
><strong>**Monroe's Head****  
><strong>

_Updated_ 8/3/2012  
><em>Last Updated<em> 4/15/2013

=ooo=

As Harry leapt from the seventh-floor windowsill the twin cylinders attached to his broom ignited. Both solid-fuel rockets, they pushed Harry forward as a Levitation Charm kicked in, balancing most of Harry's weight. The rockets only provided about 40 pounds of thrust apiece, and only for 10 seconds, but that was enough to carry him over the nearest wall of the school grounds.

From that point the wards against flying objects were no longer in effect so, using the broom's innate flying ability, Harry tipped himself downward and spiraled to the ground. He landed not far from the road that led to Hogsmeade, but he had no intention of going there or letting anyone see that he was now outside the castle. He stuffed the broom back into his mokeskin pouch and Disapparated, heading toward London.

He appeared outside the TBC building, startling a passerby who almost walked into him. Harry excused himself and stepped aside, leaving the man looking around, wondering where he'd come from. Harry was frowning as he walked into the entrance to the building. He _should_ have arrived in the small anteroom with the Floo connection up to his apartment. That meant someone, probably the Aurors who were searching his business, had established an Anti-Apparition Jinx on the inside of the building. And _that_ meant they were probably expecting him or Hermione to show up, to find out what was going on. Well, he was here, but he wasn't going to show up until he was sure Malfoy and his goons could find no way into his private residence from his business offices. If he did, Harry knew, Malfoy would probably exercise the loophole that would let him check the residence if such an entryway was found. Just as if Harry were nothing more than a Death Eater.

Harry entered through the revolving doors. There were no Aurors waiting in the lobby for him, which meant that Malfoy put more importance on finding a secret entrance than he did on people entering the building. Harry began checking for wards and protections that the Aurors would have layered on top of his own spells. He found a ward that would notify the caster whenever someone entered the building; someone would have to come down and check to see who he was and where he was going. That was fine, because Harry wasn't going to be here when that someone arrived.

A minute later one of the elevator doors opened and a young Auror dressed in Muggle business clothing stepped out and scanned the lobby. He walked almost to the entrance, then walked over to each of the doors leading down side corridors and cast a spell over each one. He then fished a small phone from his pocket (it was one from the Weasley electronic store) and spoke into it.

"No one down here," he said, "and none of the side doors have been tampered with. Whoever came in must've gone back out."

"Alright," a soft voice replied. "Come back up and continue your search, Hoskins."

"Acknowledged," Hoskins said, then dropped the phone in a pocket and re-entered the elevator, which had remained open. The elevator doors slid closed.

Harry took off his Invisibility Cloak, smiling. He'd been right to wait until someone checked before he broke the magical lock on the door that led to the Floo connection to his private vestibule. If he knew Malfoy's logic, he would probably consider that Floo connection to be a business to residence link, since it was inside the TBC Building. The corridor, however, was not being rented by his business; it was part of the building floor space that was considered a common area, like the lobby. The room itself was little more than a crawlspace, magically extended to the size of a small room. No one but a wizard could see the door leading to that room, though Malfoy probably hadn't checked for that bit of magic, minor as it was.

There was a magic lock on the door leading to the corridor where his special room was, and Harry expected that the charm would alert the caster if it was broken. A quick detection spell told him that there were no extra spells on the door itself, or the doorway. That was good; it meant he could try a device he and Dean had been working on in his lab a few months ago, before he moved everything to his personal lab. Reaching into his mokeskin pouch, he pulled out a small cylinder about six inches long and a quarter-inch in diameter. He placed one end against the door and quietly said, "Beam me up, Scotty," then pushed the cylinder through the door.

When the cylinder was about halfway through he stopped and said, "Energize!" and let go of the cylinder. The tip of the cylinder began to expand, becoming a door almost as large as the one he's pushed the rod through. Harry opened the door, seeing a short corridor with another door at the other end. He stepped through the doorway, closing the door behind him, then stepped out the other side, now on the other side of the warded door.

Harry closed the door he'd just stepped through and said, "Energize" again. The door shrunk back to a small cylinder, and Harry pulled the cylinder out of the door and dropped it back into his pouch. Whistling the theme to "Star Trek," he strolled down the corridor to the door where his special Floo connection was located, a door marked "Building Maintenance" for anyone who could see the door and read what was written on it.

Harry tapped the door with his wand, saying "_Alohomora_," then grasped the door handle, giving it a moment to recognize him. The door _clicked_ and he pulled it open, stepping inside. Once inside, he pointed his wand at the doorknob and said, "_Colloportus_ _Malfoy_!" to magically password lock the door. "Let's see Malfoy figure _that_ password out," he muttered to himself, grinning.

Taking a pinch of Floo powder from the mantle, Harry tossed it into the fireplace saying, "Potter-Evans-Verres private residence!" and stepped into the green flames. He immediately began spinning and a moment later stepped out of the fireplace in the antechamber to his and Hermione's apartment. From here he could make sure no one could get into his apartment until he reactivated this Floo connection.

Harry turned the Floo damper to the off position, then took out his wand and cast the spell disconnecting this fireplace from any other connection. It took almost a quarter-minute to speak all of the words, but at the end he was rewarded with a dull green flash from the fireplace. It was completely unhooked from any other Floo now, and just another normal fireplace.

That left everyone unable to get inside his apartment, but also him stranded inside, unable to get out. Well, almost, Harry smiled to himself. He walked down the corridor from the anteroom to the apartment proper, meaning to continue on through to an outside window. But, staring at his comfortable chair, Harry felt a sudden weariness come over him, and he dropped into the chair, rubbing his face tiredly.

This dancing around with Malfoy was getting tiresome. It had gone on for years, with Harry mostly a step ahead of Malfoy's plots but only _just_ ahead — he never had any long stretches of time to deal with things _he_ wanted to work on, like figuring out what the Source of Magic was and how it worked. He and Monroe had been _that close _to finding Slytherin's Horcrux, which would be a truly amazing discovery and could be a significant source of forgotten spells from over eight hundred years ago, the time of the Founders. Properly controlled and warded, Harry was sure they could keep Salazar Slytherin from possessing anyone. But surely the _Ministry_ wouldn't see things that way, if they found out about it!

And that probably included Hermione, Harry considered. Even though she was a lot more worldly now than she'd been when she first came to Hogwarts, she still thought of herself as Good and things like Horcruxes and Dark magic as Bad. And never the twain shall meet…

Harry sighed, slapped his knees and stood. He needed to put in an appearance at his business office, get that situation controlled, then get back with all haste to Hogwarts and Monroe, who for all Harry knew was still standing outside the Room of Requirement trying to get in.

Pushing that admittedly humorous situation from his mind, Harry made his way to the laundry room, a spacious, well-lighted room equipped with a top-of-the-line Muggle style washer and dryer. While there were several spells that magically cleaned and pressed clothing, they tended to feel better if they went through an actual wash-dry cycle. Harry stared into the window behind the dryer: a nice pastoral landscape was visible "outside" it, although window was actually inside the building, well away from any outside walls.

This window, however, had an activation spell on it that allowed Harry to cause it to open, revealing a small walkway beyond that led to an actual outside window near the top of the TBC Building. This was his and Hermione's alternate escape path should someone manage to make it inside their apartment with numbers too great to fight and in the eventuality they couldn't get to their safe room. Harry closed the faux window behind him, locking it with the _Colloportus Malfoy_ spell and password, and walked the forty or so yards to the real outside window of the building.

He pulled the broom out of the pouch once again, then realized he might have grabbed a couple of refills for the rocket cylinders while he was at home. Well, it probably wouldn't matter — he couldn't use either the rockets or the broom itself to get back inside Hogwarts; the rockets were pants for precision flying. Harry charmed the window to open for ten seconds, then close again, and leaped off the ledge into empty air, hoping and expecting that Malfoy's Aurors hadn't cast any anti-flying spells around the building.

They hadn't. The broom flew straight and true, taking Harry to the top of the next building, where he would make his way down to the street and walk back over to the TBC Building, this time waiting for the Aurors to find him in the lobby.

=ooo=

Ginny Thomas watched, a carefully neutral expression on her face, as a dozen Aurors meticulously took apart her and Harry's office spaces. Another dozen Aurors were going over the rest of the office space that took up the majority of this floor of the TBC Building. They had been at it for nearly an hour now, and as expected there had been no incriminating discoveries. Did they not realize that Muggles worked in this space as well? Maybe they did—Malfoy had probably ordered checks for anything that might violate the secrecy laws as well as prohibitions against owning Dark books or artifacts.

Dean was with another detail of Aurors that had found Harry's lab area — an area that was now mostly empty of any magical items; Harry had not wanted to take the chance they would show up one day (like today) and arbitrarily declare something he was working on Dark, forcing an investigation in front of the Wizengamot. It was unlikely that the Wizengamot would rule in Malfoy's favor unless the item was _clearly_ Dark, but Harry hadn't wanted to give Malfoy the satisfaction of hauling him before the wizards' court in the first place.

Malfoy himself was standing nearby, overseeing the search. His expression, too, was carefully neutral, but Ginny thought she saw his lips quirk every so often when one of his minions (as Harry called them), Crabbe or Goyle, would whisper something to him. Ginny pretended to ignore Malfoy, but watched him from a corner of her eye. She wished Harry would show up and take charge of this mess! She never liked dealing with Malfoy; he made her uneasy on some indescribable, visceral level.

_And_, there was someone she very much wanted to talk to, to tell him to stop fanning the flames between Harry and Malfoy, before he started a fire that no one could put out.

A dozen feet from Ginny Thomas, Draco stood watching his men systematically take apart Potter's business operation, piece by piece. At the rate they were progressing, the entire office space would be carefully checked for Dark magic within another two hours, and if there were any secret entrances to the Potters' private residence his men would find it. That, of course, was the real reason they were here — Draco didn't expect to find anything worthwhile in Potter's business offices — that would be pure sloppiness on Potter's part. His apartment, on the other hand, took up three whole floors of space in this building — that was plenty of room to hide loads of Dark materials in!

"Nothing in the lab so far," Vincent Crabbe reported, speaking so softly Draco barely heard him. "They think there's at least one more lab on this floor, they'll let us know when they find it. So far Thomas still isn't cooperating with them."

"He won't," Draco murmured in reply. "He's Potter's man through and through."

A young Auror — Hoskins, Draco finally recalled his name — came up to them. "Someone has entered the lobby again, sir. Shall I check it out?"

"That's why I had you cast the detection spell, Hoskins," Draco said, impatiently. "Yes, go check it out."

Crabbe didn't quite hide a smirk as the young Auror ran off toward the elevators. "He hasn't quite got the hang of working for you yet, has he?"

"I hear I'm an acquired taste," Malfoy drawled, loud enough that Ginny heard him.

_Yeah, you'd be an acquired taste_, Ginny thought. _Just like at Fortescue's if they started serving dung-flavored ice cream_. She'd seen the young Auror assigned to lobby duty run for the elevator, and her fingers were crossed that Harry was in the lobby. _Come on, come on_, she thought, anxious to be gone from this place. She had things to do and people of her own to ream out…

A couple of minutes later the elevator doors opened and Ginny breathed a sigh of relief — Harry had finally shown up. He had on his best outraged businessman face, striding up to Malfoy without so much as a glance at anyone else on the floor. "Malfoy, what the hell are you doing conducting a search of my business offices on the weekend?"

Malfoy gave his long-time adversary an obtuse look. "What, would you prefer I show up while you have an office full of Muggles and start Obliviating them before I cut them loose? If anything I was doing you a favor, Potter."

"Right," Harry shook his head disgustedly, still playing the part. "You haven't found a damned thing, have you?"

"We won't know until the final reports are in," Malfoy shrugged. "You might as well settle in for a bit, my teams are being _very_ thorough."

"I'm sure they are." Harry walked away from Malfoy and up to Ginny. "Sorry this had to happen to you," he said in a low voice. "Is Dean here?"

Ginny nodded. "He went with one of the teams to check out your labs. I haven't heard about any 'findings' so far. We you busy? I thought you'd be here before now."

"I was out of town," Harry said. "Monroe and I took a trip up to Hogwarts today, to have a look at the Chamber of Secrets. We found some pretty interesting things going on down there with Slytherin's statue." Harry's eyes flicked over to see Malfoy glancing their way. "Sorry, tell you more later. I can take over here if you need to go."

"I do have some stuff to do before Dean comes home," Ginny agreed. "Oh." She seemed to suddenly realize something. "You were with Monroe? Where's he at now?"

"He's doing some — research for me," Harry said, vaguely. "He'll be okay for a while." _Assuming he ever got inside the Room of Requirement_, Harry added to himself. "You go on, take care of business. We'll be okay here. I'll send Dean home as soon as they're done with him."

"Okay," Ginny said, and went to her desk and took her purse out of one of the drawers. "If you're sure you don't need me…" she said, giving Harry one last chance to have her stay.

"Go," Harry said, taking her arm and walking with her to the elevator. The young Auror, Hoskins, who'd accompanied Harry back from the lobby, moved warily in front of the elevators as they approached.

"Erm, I'm supposed to escort anyone leaving out of the building," he explained. "Head's orders."

Harry turned to Ginny. "I'll leave you in Mr. Hoskins' capable hands, then," he said, with a small bow. Ginny smiled at him, then her face went neutral as she followed the young Auror into the elevator.

As the doors closed, Harry sighed and walked back to Malfoy. They both stood silently for some time before Harry softly muttered, "There are no secret entrances to my apartment."

"We'll just see about that," Malfoy muttered, equally softly.

=ooo=

James Monroe turned away from the window Harry had just leapt from. There had been no scream and crash, so Harry's broom contraption must have worked. Hopefully he would be back soon.

He faced the blank wall. His task now was to get inside the Room of Requirement — which he'd never heard of until a few minutes ago, and for which he had rather imprecise instructions on how to get inside; you had to _need_ to get in, apparently. What had Harry said? _You think what you need, and walk back and forth in front of this wall three times doing that_.

Yeah, that was clear as mud, Monroe thought, unhappily.

But he had no choice but to try it. He certainly didn't want to be caught standing here if a student or — Merlin forbid — a prefect or _teacher_ walked by. He'd have some explaining to do, especially since Harry was no longer around to run interference with Headmaster Longbottom. It would be difficult to explain why Harry left and he had stayed; he certainly wasn't going to tell Longbottom he was trying to get into the Room of Requirement!

"So," Monroe said softly, looking at the wall. "Let's see what you've got for me." But what did he need? Originally he and Harry were coming here so Harry could tell him in private what he and the huge Slytherin statue had talked about — in Parseltongue — when they were in the Chamber of Secrets. Is that what he needed, then? And how could the _room_ give him that if Harry wasn't even here?

Well, he had to give it a try. Monroe concentrated on the phrase, _I need to know what Harry and the Slytherin statue talked about, I need to know what Harry and the Slytherin statue talked about_. He repeated that phrase over and over in his head as he paced back and forth in front of the blank wall.

On his third pass, Monroe stopped suddenly as a low, grinding noise began to cause the floor to slightly vibrate. He spun around to face the blank wall once again, only to find it was no longer a blank wall.

A large, polished oak door had appeared in the wall, complete with brass hinges and a huge brass handle for a doorknob. Monroe stared at it in wonderment for some time before realizing he should clear out of the corridor. He grasped the handle and pulled the door open, stepping inside and pulling it closed behind him.

The room inside was not what he'd expected — but then, it was hard to know what he _should_ expect, never having been here before. Dimly lit by low-burning braziers on the walls, Monroe could barely make out four figures standing in a semicircle before him. "Who's there?" he asked, hesitantly, wondering if he had walked in while someone else was in the room. But there was no reply, and as he continued slowly forward, Monroe saw that the four figures were actually four man-sized statues.

The statue on his left was of a tall, stately woman in a long, flowing dress, with the image of a diadem on her head. Next to her was an even taller man, imposing looking, with shoulder-length hair and a full beard, his hands resting on the hilt of a long sword. The next statue Monroe recognized as Salazar Slytherin; he looked quite similar to the statue in the Chamber of Secrets except that this statue wore a pendant marked with a stylized "S" around its neck. The final statue was of a shorter, stout woman with a pleasant face, holding a cup in her hands. Looking back and forth at the four statues staring at him, Monroe murmured "What do we have here?" Why would the Room of Requirement show him this, a group of the four Founders?

"A question," a soft voice suddenly spoke. Monroe turned to his left, where the voice had come from. There was no one behind him, but the woman with the diadem on her forehead seemed to be staring directly at him now.

"Did someone speak?" Monroe said aloud, watching the statue carefully. If these statues were like the one of Slytherin in the Chamber, perhaps he had found something quite unusual here. There were dozens of talking portraits scattered throughout the castle; indeed, many wizarding families had at least one or two in their houses. He remembered seeing a portrait of Albus Dumbledore in Harry's apartment once, though the old man was sleeping at the time.

But talking statues? He'd never seen anything like them anywhere, either in Wizarding Britain or in America when he was at the Salem Institute. "Can you speak?" he asked the statues again.

"We can." The statue of the tall, imposing man spoke, though there was no movement of its mouth. "We are…the Founders of Hogwarts," the voice went on, slowly. "Ravenclaw…Hufflepuff…Slytherin… and Gryffindor."

"I think I only needed to speak to Slytherin," Monroe told the voice. He wasn't sure if he was hearing the voice in his ears or his head. "Why are all four of you here?"

"We are the Founders," the voice rumbled, as if that should answer the question.

Monroe decided to hit the nail on the head right off. "Are you Horcruxes?"

"We are the Founders," Gryffindor's voice said again.

"We are not Horcruxes," the stately woman's voice spoke right after Gryffindor. "We are the spirits of the Founders, preserved forever in the very stones of the castle we built."

"I don't want to nitpick," Monroe said, diffidently. "But that could be considered the definition of a Horcrux. It is a fragment of a wizard's soul stored in an object, animate or inanimate, to anchor that soul to this existence."

"That definition is imprecise and incomplete," Ravenclaw's voice spoke, giving Monroe the impression she was being imperious. The Greek wizard who created the spell believed it could only be accomplished by murder, a crime so heinous that it would cleave a soul asunder. We did no murder when we preserved ourselves thus."

"When did you do this?" Monroe asked, feeling a sense of excitement beginning to build inside him.

A new voice spoke, a woman's voice, warm and caring. "The castle was barely raised when we chose to make ourselves part of it forever, to watch over the children and those charged with their education.'

"We have seen much in the time that has passed since then," Slytherin's voice spoke at last, a thin, hollow voice, but at least it spoke in English rather than Parseltongue, Monroe thought, relieved. "Much has changed."

"Indeed it has," Monroe agreed. "Much has been learned since those days, and much has been lost."

"Aye," Ravenclaw's voice agreed. "There is much that is no longer taught to our students, much they must discover on their own in the world."

"Perhaps," Monroe murmured. "But there are some things we can no longer learn — things that have been lost to the Interdict of Merlin."

"Merlin," Slytherin's thin, hollow voice repeated. "He was a very bright boy, as I recall. A bit taken with the Muggles, perhaps more so than necessary, considering their place in our world, but he was in my House. What is this 'Interdict' you speak of?"

"It is a spell he cast just before his death," Monroe answered. "It prevents powerful spells from being learned by any wizard except directly from another wizard. All the ancient powerful spells of your time can no longer be learned because of it."

"Why would any wizard do such a thing?" Ravenclaw's voice betrayed the shock her living mind might have felt, if she were still alive. "Wisdom is wizardkind's greatest treasure and its greatest gift!"

"Merlin may have felt caution was more important," Monroe said. "He thought that wizards would someday destroy the world as their magic became more and more powerful."

"We had hoped other schools like ours would be established one day by our students," the voice of Hufflepuff said, wistfully. "Has that been accomplished?"

"There are other schools," Monroe replied. "A few in Europe, three in a new land called the Americas, and several more in the East. But there are none as great as Hogwarts," he added. "You can thank the Interdict for that."

"Unacceptable," Gryffindor growled. "We built Hogwarts as a beacon of light in the darkness — it should not be the best example of our craft, but the first one."

"I agree," Monroe said. "Perhaps the Founders can help me begin that dream anew."

"What can we do?" Slytherin rasped. "We are but shadows within the walls of the castle we built!"

"You may be able to help more than you know, if you remember the spells that helped you raise Hogwarts, for example," Monroe answered. "You can teach them to me, and I can teach them to the students of Hogwarts. From there we can spread them across the world, to other wizards who have the same dream you had for your school."

There was silence for a time. Then, "We can," the voice of Ravenclaw spoke. "But there is much for only one man to learn."

"Well, I hope to have some help show up shortly," Monroe said. "Between the two of us we should be able to remember quite a bit."

=ooo=

Once Ginny was outside the wards the Aurors had placed in the TBC Building she Apparated to northwest London, to an older neighborhood she visited infrequently these days. She arrived on the edge of an unkempt square, unnoticed by the inhabitants of the neighborhood, and she stood still for several moments, seeming to stare not so much at the buildings in her line of sight as _between_ them. Which indeed she was, as she was looking at a building that almost no one living today could see. She reached up and drew the shawl draped over her shoulders up over her head, then threw the bottom edge of it across her lower face. No use giving anyone peering out of their windows a chance to see who she was. That, and weather was cold this evening, with an icy breeze nipping at her nose and ears.

She walked across the road surrounding the square and across the pavement in front of a row of shabby-looking houses. If anyone had been looking out of their windows just then, they would have seen a shawl-draped woman walking across the lawn between two houses, then seem to disappear between them, which might have appeared odd to some, though most people would shrug and dismiss the idea from their minds.

But Ginny had not walked between the houses; she was now on the front steps of number four, Grimmauld Place, and she reached up and tapped the doorknocker, a bronze lion's head, three times. After several seconds of silence, the door creaked slowly open. A small house-elf stared up smilingly at her. "Welcome, Miss Ginny," Jumpy said to her, bowing deeply. "You are here to see Master Ron and Mistress Luna, you are?"

Ginny nodded, "Yes," she said, a bit shortly. She was here to see Ron, mostly, but there was no use in upsetting Luna if she didn't have to. "May I come in?"

"Of course, of course," the elf stepped back, allowing her entry to the Weasleys' home. Not much had changed in the long hallway of this old home. Portraits of the Weasley family hung along the walls and the golden chandelier still hung from the ceiling, casting its feeble light down the hall. At the back of the ground floor was the inaptly named "front," or living room, and Jumpy padded off to announce her arrival. Ginny could hear him muttering her name to whoever was in the room.

A moment later Luna appeared, smiling brightly as she saw Ginny. "Hello!" she said happily. "I'm so happy to see you again, Ginny. Why don't you come into the parlor?"

"Hello, Luna." Ginny was smiling as well in spite of her unpleasant mood. There was no reason to take out her anger against Ron on Luna, though, so she followed her sister-in-law into the living room and sat down in the chair Luna offered to her.

"Jumpy, would you bring us some tea, please?" Luna asked the young house-elf waiting in the doorway. "I'm sure Ginny would like something while she's here."

"Yes, Mistress," Jumpy bowed deeply again and disappeared down the basement steps where the kitchen was located.

"How have you been?" Luna asked Ginny as they waited. "I haven't seen you for some time now at the shop."

"I've been busy," Ginny said, tiredly. "I just came from work — Malfoy got a wild hair up his arse and decided to search Harry's business because of suspected Dark items being held there."

"Oh, dear," Luna looked concerned. "I hope there's nothing to find there!"

"There's not," Ginny said, smiling. Luna always took such things so seriously. "Malfoy's just harassing Harry, as usual."

"Oh, that's too bad," Luna said, commiserating with her. "I like it when Harry visits the shop — he always seems to liven things up around there."

"He does," Ginny agreed, emphatically. Her brothers still talked about Harry and Monroe's duel — and of course Monroe's arrival in Wizarding London had shaken up more than just the Weasleys.

But her reason for visiting was to set things straight with Ron, not to exchange banalities with Luna. She was tired of him going to Malfoy with the things she talked about with him. Even if the letters were anonymous (and they undoubtedly were) she could tell where Malfoy was getting his information from. She hoped Ron would get home soon so she could get this over with.

Jumpy returned, laboriously carrying a tea set over his head, with curls of steam rising from the teapot. He set it down on a table in front of Luna and Ginny, and began to pick up the tea kettle when Luna stopped him. "I'll take care of it, Jumpy," she said, pleasantly. "Will you go down and make sure supper will be ready when Ron gets home?"

"Yes, Mistress," Jumpy nodded obediently, then nodded to Ginny and scuttled off to the basement again.

"I like it when Jumpy calls me 'Mistress,'" Luna said conversationally as she poured the tea into her and Ginny's cups. "It sounds so formal and elegant, doesn't it?"

"It was nice of Harry to buy this house for our family," Ginny replied, though she didn't care too much for the old place itself, or that Luna seemed to enjoy living here. "I think Ron was the only one of us…brave enough to live here." She might have said _stupid enough_ but that wouldn't have been appropriate in front of Luna; her mother Molly had never been sure they'd gotten all the pests out of this old, decrepit building. All the buildings in this square seemed odd for one reason or another — they had never figured out why there was no number twelve, for example.

"Oh, did I never tell you?" Luna looked surprised (which she almost always did anyway, with her protuberant eyes) "After Ron and I got married I insisted that we live here. He had told me about all the fascinating creatures your family had found here when Harry bought the house for his family, and I wanted to write a book on the types of creatures one might find in old houses like this."

"I didn't know that!" Ginny said, surprised. Luna handed her a cup of tea with the amount of sugar and cream that Ginny liked. "Thank you," she said, waiting for Luna to pick up her own cup before sipping from hers. "Mmm, very nice," Ginny lifted the cup toward Luna, who smiled agreeably. "So have you been working on that book, then?" she asked, curiously.

"Oh, off and on," Luna said, vaguely. "It's difficult to find the time while I'm working at the shop and taking care of Ron."

Ginny's expression darkened. "Maybe you should make time for yourself, Luna. Ron can fend for himself if he needs to."

"I know," Luna agreed. "But I've always had someone to take care of, it feels so natural to me. Daddy was lost when Mummy died; I began helping him with the _Quibbler_ by writing articles for him from time to time, until I began going to Hogwarts."

"I remember hearing about some of them," Ginny agreed, sipping at her tea. It was hard to keep her foul mood intact while she was around Luna, but if Ron didn't show up soon all of her anger at him was going to dissipate before she could ream him out properly for his transgressions. "Do you know when Ron's going to be home, by the way?"

"He didn't say, exactly," Luna said, unconcerned. "What are you upset with him about?"

Ginny blinked, a bit surprised at the question. Luna always did have a penchant for asking blunt questions in a completely straightforward, innocent way. "I — didn't say I was upset with him, did I?"

"No," Luna replied, "but when you come over you're usually upset, either with Dean, Ron, or one of your other brothers, and since you haven't begun complaining about him and asked about him just now, it seems like he's the one you're upset with."

"Hmm," Ginny said, setting down her tea. "Well, I'd rather discuss it with him directly, Luna, but I am upset with him."

"It's about Harry, isn't it?" Luna asked, then picked up a small tray from the tea tray. "Scone?"

Ginny silently accepted a scone from the tray offered her, wondering how much Ron had told her of their conversations. Before she could ask, however, Luna spoke. "It's too bad that Ron and Harry don't get on as well as they should. I suppose that's because Harry married Ron's first love."

"Did he tell you that?" Ginny demanded, becoming more angry at Ron than ever now. Why would he tell his wife something like that?!

"Oh, no," Luna shook her long blond locks. "Ron loves me very much, he would never say something like that to me. But it's as plain as the nose on his face how he feels about Hermione."

That wasn't something Ginny was going to deny. But her real interest was — "So, what has he told you about Harry lately?"

Luna chuckled. "Oh, he's said that Harry and his friend James Monroe are planning to break the Interdict of Merlin, so that all the ancient spells can be learned again, and how that could cause a magical World War that will destroy everything, just like Merlin predicted eight hundred years ago. He's said that they want to bring about something called a Magical Sanctuary —"

"It's called the Magical _Singulariy_," Ginny put in.

"Oh yes, that then," Luna said. "Ron said that if that happened we'd all be sucked into the Source of Magic, whatever that is, and disappear. He's also said Harry plans to prove that souls don't exist, so that Horcruxes can't really exist, either."

"Ron's told you about _Horcruxes_?" Ginny asked, breathlessly.

"Oh, no, of course not. We learned all about them when I was in Ravenclaw," Luna replied. "We just never told Professor Flitwick or any of the other teachers what we knew about them — Flitwick always looked _very_ nervous whenever one of the upper years would make an oblique reference to them." Ginny smiled at that, at the same time wondering how many students in the other Houses knew. Harry had said Dumbledore thought it was a deep, dark secret that very few knew of, and no one at Hogwarts was supposed to know, not even the other teachers. The old headmaster might have been quite surprised to learn just how many Ravenclaws knew about them. "Of course we never said anything to the other houses — the Slytherins would have immediately begun plotting to make their own, and the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs would always have been trying to find them and destroy them."

"I guess that's true," Ginny admitted. "So… did Ron ever tell anyone else about what he thought Harry was doing? _Not_," she hastened to add, "that I think he _was _doing those things, but that Ron thought so."

Luna laughed softly. "Ron can be such a hot-head…well, I'm sure you already know that, of course, but he knows how well-liked Harry is in the Wizarding community — the Boy-Who-Made-Good, I suppose we could call him now, with his big ivory tower and employing so many people, both Muggle and wizard."

"Harry has enemies, too," Ginny pointed out. "Malfoy being the biggest one at the moment."

Luna nodded. "And there are probably wizards who dislike him as well, for whatever reasons they think are valid. Ron tells me there are shopkeepers in Diagon Alley who resent him for keeping the rents there so high. I'm not sure why they think that, though, since the Ministry controls rental rates in Diagon Alley."

"Hmm, that's right," Ginny agreed, remembering that now. "I'd forgotten about that. But has Ron been telling other people about these things, or writing them down?"

"I think the only time I see Ron with a quill in his hand is when he's writing down his hours at the shop," Luna smiled. "Ron's never been much for writing down things."

"So you don't think he's been writing to the Ministry about what Harry and Monroe have been doing?" Ginny pressed.

"The Ministry?" Luna's already protuberant eyes grew even wider. "Oh dear me, no — he _hates_ Draco Malfoy, even more than he ever disliked Harry. I suppose the poor dear is just frustrated that Harry is so much more successful than he is." Luna took her last sip of tea, then swirled her cup and poured the last bit of tea into her saucer. She glanced into the cup, reading the leaves. "My immediate future looks good," she said, dreamily, "I'm not too sure how things will go after that." She reached out for Ginny's cup. "Would you like me to read your fortune?"

Ginny shook her head, setting her cup down only half-finished. "I think I should be going — Dean will be home in a little while, I hope, and I should get ready for him, he'll be tired after spending the last few hours watching Malfoy's men search our offices."

"Very thoughtful of you, dear," Luna reached over and patted Ginny on the arm. "I'll tell Ron you visited, he always likes it when you visit, even if you yell at him." Both women stood and Luna walked with Ginny down the hallway to the front door. "Nice to see you again, dear," she said, giving Ginny a small hug. "Why don't you come by sometime when you don't feel like yelling at Ron. We can have dinner."

"That sounds nice," Ginny smiled, then threw her shawl over her head once again and walked down the steps to the front walk. From there she Apparated directly to the front door of her apartment building, went inside and walked up to her apartment and let herself in.

"Dean?" she called as she entered. There was no reply. She took her phone out of her purse, checking for any texts or voice messages he might have left her. Nothing there, either. She would have to hurry if she wanted everything ready for when he returned.

Ginny walked into their bedroom and up to the small writing desk she kept in there for writing family and friends. She sat down at the desk, closed her eyes and seemed to meditate for several seconds. An expression of cold, vacant detachment came over her features, and she took out her wand, pointing it at a small drawer in the desk. The drawer slid halfway open, and a piece of parchment stationery and a Quotes Quill from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, one that Ron had enchanted and had never been used, floated out of the drawer, coming to rest on the desk in front of her.

Ginny began speaking in a low, inflectionless voice, and the quill jumped up on its tip and began to write.

* * *

><p><em>To Head Auror Malfoy,<em>

_Once again I feel I must let you know of Harry Potter's activities, activities that are undermining the safety of Wizarding Britain._

_The details are sparse, but Potter has been to Hogwarts to visit the Chamber of Secrets, with the permission of Headmaster Longbottom. He may have discovered something about the statue of Salazar Slytherin that ties in with his efforts to undermine the rule of the Ministry and Wizengamot. As Head Auror, it is your duty to stop him from destroying our government and our way of life. As a concerned citizen, I urge you with all speed to prevent him from doing this._

* * *

><p>Ginny left the letter unsigned, as usual. A parchment envelope floated out of a slot and dropped to the desk next to the letter. Ginny spoke Malfoy's name as the address and the letter folded and inserted itself into the envelope. Ginny looked at the window and it slid open of its own accord, just as an owl from the London Owl-Post office flew in the window, landing on the desk and hooting at her impatiently.<p>

The letter lifted in the air and slid into the mail pouch attached to the owl's leg. A Sickle floated out of another drawer in the desk and disappeared into the coin pouch on the owl's other leg, and it spread its wings and immediately flew out of the window.

Her expression still vacant, Ginny undressed and put on her nightgown, then slipped into bed and closed her eyes.


	19. A Conversation with the Founders

**Chapter Nineteen  
><strong>**A Conversation with the Founders**

_Updated_ 8/24/2012

=ooo=

"Satisfied?" Harry asked, keeping his voice neutral. He didn't want Malfoy sensing the irritation and anger he was feeling.

"We didn't find anything," Malfoy replied, his tone as neutral as Harry's. "This time," he added. He was far from done with Potter and his sneaking around over the past few months.

It was late in the evening, and the Auror teams that had searched Harry's offices and labs in the TBC Building ("ransacked" had been the term Harry used) had packed up and left, leaving only the Head Auror and his two subordinates, Crabbe and Goyle.

"This time," Harry repeated, softly. He gave Malfoy a condescending look. "You know there's nothing here to find."

"Right," Malfoy agreed, sarcastically. "That's why you showed up as soon as you could after we executed our warrants and stayed here the entire tire, because there's 'nothing here to find.'"

"I just don't want you or your men pulling a fast one," Harry replied. "Look what you did to James Monroe a few months ago — you put an illegal trace spell on him."

"That spell is not illegal," Malfoy snapped.

"But you didn't have clearance to use it," Harry snapped right back.

"There is some discretion over its use by Auror personnel," Malfoy insisted.

Harry smiled. "Apparently not enough in that case," he reminded the Head Auror. "Since you had to remove it on orders from the Minister."

"_Your_ wife," Malfoy sneered, because he had nowhere else to go with it. "Someday she isn't going to be Minister anymore, and who's going to protect you then?"

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see," Harry said, coldly. Malfoy was really beginning to get on his nerves. "Isn't it time you toddled off to bed, to count your failures for the week?"

Malfoy laughed and turned away, seething inwardly. Damn Potter! He might have won this round, but eventually he'd find something that would stick to the man. Motioning for Crabbe and Goyle to step closer, he brought out a parchment envelope that had been enchanted for their return to the Ministry. Crabbe and Goyle each grasped a corner, and Malfoy said, "Activate." The three of them disappeared in a whirlwind of color and light and a pop of air rushing in to fill the space they had occupied.

"Finally," Harry muttered. The only people left in the office now were him and Dean, and Dean was still checking the labs where Aurors had opened every drawer and cupboard, and poked around in every box. He took out his phone and called Dean. "How's it going?" he asked when Dean answered.

"I'm getting things situated again," Dean said, in a tone that suggested he was highly aggravated at Malfoy and his Auror-goons. "They left things a mess, as usual, to show that they can do whatever they want when they have a warrant to back them up."

"Can we finish things up tomorrow?" Harry asked. "I still have stuff to do and there's not that much time left in the day."

"There's no time left in the day," Dean laughed. "It's nearly tomorrow, aleady! But sure, this stuff can wait 'til then." He paused for a moment. "Is Ginny still here?"

"Oh, I sent her home hours ago," Harry replied. "She said she had stuff to do before you got home."

"Oh." Dean couldn't imagine what stuff she meant, but he wasn't altogether sure about a lot of what Ginny did lately. "Okay, well, I'll be there in a minute and we can get out of here."

"Great," Harry said, ending the call. He pocketed his phone and walked over to stand next to the elevator. His next stop was back to Hogwarts to see what Monroe had found out in the Room of Requirement. He just hoped James hadn't been stuck outside the Room this whole time, as funny (in a way) as that would be. Some people just couldn't do what it took to get into the Room of Requirement. James was a pretty intelligent guy, but that by itself was no guarantee of success. When Harry got there, he would find out soon enough which side of the door Monroe was on.

=ooo=

At the Ministry, the Auror teams that had just left the TBC building were busy writing the reports that would go to the Head Auror, then to the Minister herself. At least, that was how things were supposed to work.

Given the amount of time the Auror Department had spending analyzing information related to TBC and Harry Potter over the past few weeks, some Aurors privately wondered just how much the Head Auror actually told the Minister what was going on with her husband, given the setbacks the Head had suffered in the past few months. But theirs was not to wonder why, theirs was but to do and report on it. Carefully. Especially so with Lord Malfoy's son as their boss.

Malfoy himself was in his office, going over the last bits of incoming correspondence before leaving until Monday morning. There were several status reports from the end of the week; he set those aside for next week. Manpower reports, also into the pile for next week. A couple of owl posts… he would read those then call it a day. His wife was probably wondering what was keeping him. He should have owled her, probably, but she was used to him by now, he hoped.

The first owl was from one of the shopkeepers in Diagon Alley protesting the recent rental hike on his shop. And apparently he didn't buy the Ministry's official explanation that Harry Potter had requested the hike. He had written that according to the _Quibbler_, blah, blah blah.

Draco mentally shrugged. Where old Xenophilius Lovegood pulled those stories of his from would probably make an interesting story in itself. Never mind that in this case he happened to be right, for once — Potter had little to do with how the rental rates were determined in Diagon Alley, other than the fact that he had hooks into most of the businesses there and that was why Draco kept getting the rates bumped up every so often. That owl would go into his "special" file on Potter.

The next owl he stared at for some time, recognizing the writing on the envelope. It was in the distinctive script of a Weasley Anony-Quill.

He ran his finger along the edge of the envelope, wandlessly casting _Diffindo_, and the letter slid into his hand. As he expected it was once again about Potter; this time the writer was saying that Potter had been to the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts, that he had found out something about the statue of Salazar Slytherin there. What, specifically he'd found out, the letter didn't say, but letter went on to urge him to stop Potter from undermining the rule of the Ministry and the Wizengamot. What, Draco wondered, could Potter have discovered that would undermine either of those? That would be nearly impossible, even considering that one of his friends was now the Chief Wizard of the Wizengamot.

Unless he'd found some way to make either the Ministry or the Wizengamot, or both, powerless to stop him, somehow. Potter and his minion Monroe had been poking around in exotic ideas lately, things like where the source of magic came from, whether magic could somehow be made to increase without limit, or if he'd found some way around the Interdict of Merlin. None of those scenarios boded well for the future of the Ministry, or for Draco's future, if he wasn't positioned properly when Potter made his play.

Draco dropped the letter on his desk, then closed his eyes and tried to think. This was the third letter he'd received from his "confidential informant" about Potter and his activities, and the evidence pointed to a Weasley — ostensibly Ron since he knew the second-youngest Weasley sibling didn't care too much for Potter, not like the rest of his family, who practically idolized him.

But Ron Weasley wasn't the sort of fellow who could get the kind of information the letters Draco had on his own. He was no dummy, of course; like his brothers, their Hogwarts transcripts didn't give a good indication of how smart they really were. Between Fred and George together they'd earned only three O.W.L.s, and Ron had earned only six, most of those with help from the other Gryffindors (and probably Granger as well, they were more-or-less friendly during their fifth year, Draco remembered). Yet the three of them and their spouses were running two very successful shops in Diagon Alley, shops that sold some pretty sophisticated magic items, if you ignored the fact they were mostly mimicking Muggle technology or were novelty and joke items. Even the Auror Department used Weasley technology — on the Q.T. of course; Draco didn't want them knowing their devices were in his offices, even though those devices had been checked for hidden spells and such.

Still, Ron Weasley probably wasn't the instigator of these letters, not on his own. At least that was Draco's working hypothesis — he could be wrong, but if so that would make things simpler, not harder.

And from there it was easy enough to decide what to do. Draco grabbed a quill and parchment and wrote down his plan, then left his office, stopping at Mr. Crabbe's cubicle. "New plan," he told Vincent, dropping the parchment on his desk.

Vincent Crabbe glanced up at his boss, a neutral expression on his face, then picked up the parchment and began to read. He blinked a couple of times, but kept himself from blanching. "You mean _now_?" he finally asked, trying to keep the aggravation out of his voice. Nobody in the department was going to be happy about this.

"Now," Draco affirmed. "I want to catch them off-guard. Each team should have enough Veritaserum for three people, in case the interrogations go long or someone else becomes available. Make sure to check each person for the antidote. And make sure no one is able to communicate with anyone else — I don't want to give them any chance of cooking up a story for us. Get it done. I'll be here if you need me."

Crabbe nodded, then went to let Goyle in on their new task. Draco went back to his office, hoping that nothing went wrong with this plan. He needed to find out once and for all who was feeding him information about Potter, and why.

=ooo=

Harry Apparated just outside Hogsmeade, this time beneath his Cloak of Invisibility. He paused for a moment, considering his options. It was going to be more difficult to get _into_ Hogwarts than it had been getting _out_ of it. Difficult, but certainly not impossible. Under the Cloak, with a Silencing Charm in place to keep his footsteps and breathing from being heard, the only thing that could locate him under his Cloak was something he already had with him — the Marauder's Map.

Harry made his way down the road leading to the gates of the castle wall, using moonlight to guide him. The gates were his first problem. It was past midnight and they would certainly be locked. He pondered for a moment, then decided to see if his trick door would work. He pulled it out of the mokeskin pouch but the cylinder wouldn't pass between the bars of the gate. So much for that. He tried the walls on either side of the gate, with the same luck.

Good for Neville, he and his staff were keeping up with the times, Harry smiled to himself. He tried several unlocking spells on the lock and chains holding the gate closed, with no success. He had a potion of spider-climbing in his pouch but certainly the wall would be warded for things like that. It was tempting to give it a try, though, just in case Neville and his staff had overlooked it.

But, no. And while there were several other items in his pouch that he might have used in various novel ways to defeat the gate, there was an alternate solution that would probably work just as well, though it would call attention to him. Harry reached into his pouch and pulled out his broomstick. Mounting it still covered in his Cloak, Harry pushed off, his wand in his hand, and flew upward and into a loop that took him directly over the wall.

As he passed over the wall the wards immediately kicked in, neutralizing his broom's flying ability. Harry glided gently to the ground. He'd known that the wards would not simply drop him (or anyone) to the ground. He quickly stuffed the broom back in his pouch then cast a Silencing Charm on the inside of the Cloak and hurried toward the front doors. If he was fast enough he'd get there before anyone came out to investigate.

He stopped at the base of the front stairs. Someone from the staff, possibly Neville himself, would be checking to see who'd set off the anti-flight wards on the castle perimeter. They would be casting detection spells to check for the presence of intruders. So — Harry would have to make himself scarce for a few minutes. That's where his pouch would once again come in handy.

Neville Longbottom, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, strode down the grand staircase into the Entrance Hall of the school, his now slightly lined face frowning with apprehension. Who could have set off the flight wards at this time of night? Had some student been out having a midnight flight at the Quidditch pitch and flew out of bounds? Or was something more serious going on? He paused at the double oaken doors, still bolted and locked, and cast the spells to unlock them. He then sent a _Homenum Revelio_ spell through the door, to check for any humans outside. None were detected within range of the spell.

Two fifth-year Hufflepuff prefects rushed into the Entrance Hall through the door leading to their common room. "We just heard the alarm, Headmaster!" the girl, Eileen Weatherly, said breathlessly. "Do you need any help?"

"I don't think so, Eileen," Neville replied, smiling at her and James Brandson, her fellow prefect. "But why don't you two wait here until I return, keep things safe and tell any of the other prefects or teachers that show up that I'm having a look round outside."

The two prefects nodded, and Neville waved his wand again. One of the oaken doors slowly opened, and he stepped through. The door began to slowly close again, then wobbled for a moment before it finally shut.

"That was weird," James said, walking over to stare at the big oaken door. "I wonder what's wrong with this thing? I never saw it do that before."

"The Headmaster was probably distracted," Eileen guessed. James shrugged, then stood a bit straighter. He'd been charged with securing this room, and he intended to do just that.

Under his Cloak, Harry paused on the staircase landing and smiled at the two students. It was hard to remember when he was that young. The entrance door had almost closed on him as he slipped past Neville; he'd had to step lively to get through, and the door had brushed against him anyway.

Harry had waited at the top of the stairs, hidden inside his pouch, until his detection spells told him a Human Revealment Charm had been cast. He and Quirrell had once used his original pouch to hide the Defense professor, in his Animagus snake-form, inside it. With this improved version, Harry could put much larger objects inside, including himself, using a special keyword when he put his hand in the pouch's mouth. Another keyword would reverse that.

The door had opened just as he stood and Neville stepped outside, allowing Harry entry. He moved away from the two students who were staring curiously at the door, and made his way up the staircase to the first floor. Only six more to go before he got to the seventh floor and the Room of Requirement.

=ooo=

Fred Weasley snuggled against his wife's sleeping form, enjoying the warmth her body created. It had been a long day in the shop, with too much of it taken up explaining to a potential customer how a Weasley-modified iPhone (the Weasley wPhone 5) was many times superior to owl posts — with their new Owl Post Service you could send a message to a wizard who did not possess a wPhone of their own: Weasleys' Wireless Wonderland had an agreement with the Diagon Alley Owlery, in which they'd installed a device to transcribe messages onto parchment, attach it to an owl, and send it off to the intended witch or wizard.

Fred was proud of that device, and rightly so — it had taken some time before the owls understood who they were supposed to take the message to, even when the device spoke the name clearly and distinctly. The old wizard who ran the Owlery was even harder to convince; he'd scratched the wart on his chin, frowning, and said he'd never heard of such a thing as a _box_ telling his owls where to go! Only a wizard could do that! Fred had to cut the man in on 10 percent of the profits before he'd agree to try it. But it was working smooth as glass now, and Weasley wPhones accounted for 27 percent of all the messages sent from the Owlery these days. The old man was usually smiling whenever Fred saw him these days; he'd even added a couple of long-distance owls to his business since partnering with the Weasleys.

By contrast, though, what Fred really wanted to spend more time doing was research on new ideas for their wireless and electronics business. There were several concents in the Muggle marketplace of ideas that could be adapted for the Wizarding community. One was a GPS system for brooms. GPS stood for "global positioning system," a means of knowing where you were and for directing you to your desired location, and while you could use Muggle GPS systems on a broom now, they had to be carefully protected from magic or they tended not to work right. Fred wanted to develop a magical GPS, one that could be affixed to any broom to allow the rider to simply follow its directions without continual course correction and needless detours, something that was difficult to get Muggle GPSs to do unless you were flying at almost street level, which wasn't practical unless the broom had an Invisibility Booster, and then it was still dangerous in areas with tall vehicles like trucks and double-decker buses. A magical GPS would be something like the Marauder's Map, but with a much wider mapping area, and it had to be done on the fly. He might have to borrow the Map back from Harry, so he could do some reverse-engineering on it.

Even bolder was his idea to develop a self-flying broom, a broom that you could just get on and tell it, for example, "Take me to Aunt Muriel's house," and it would take off and fly you there without you having to control the broom at all. That was slower going; Fred was having to bone up on fleobromolgy, the study of magical flying brooms — flying charms, braking charms, the charms used to control the steering of the broom; it turned out enchanting a single broom was a very complex procedure, especially if you wanted Firebolt-quality performance, and Fred would accept nothing less from any brooms his shops produced.

Verity stirred beside him, and Fred waited to see if she was going to wake up. It would be nice if she did — she usually woke up feeling amorous, and Fred wouldn't mind if they decided to spend a few intimate moments before falling back to sleep. But Verity only rolled onto her side, facing away from him, her breathing still low and steady.

_Oh well_, Fred thought to himself, _there's always time for a little bit before we get up in the morning_, and rolled onto his side as well. Verity could be quite randy some mornings —

_Wham_. Fred winced as if he'd been struck. Had Verity just _hit_ him? He looked back at her — no, she hadn't moved! What was going on —? Then he realized what he'd felt.

Fred slipped out of bed, grabbing his housecoat and slipping it on in one fluid motion as he moved toward the door of their bedroom. What he'd _felt_ was the wards protecting the shop downstairs catastrophically collapsing. Someone (likely more than a single wizard) had cast a powerful ward-breaking curse. They were under attack.

George's door opened as Fred approached it and his twin brother joined him as they rushed towards the staircase. "How many, d'you think?" George asked.

Another door opened behind him and the twins knew that Ron was with them. "What the hell was that?" Ron was saying.

"Has to be at least a half-dozen," Fred answered George as they started down the stairs. "Protection wards breaking," he threw over his shoulder to their youngest brother. "Be ready for anything," he added, unnecessarily.

"_Don't move_!" voices suddenly shouted at them from the bottom of the staircase. The light of multiple _Lumos_ charms glared at them.

Both Fred and George's wands were pointing toward the lights. "Who's there?!" Fred called out. "Who are you?!"

"Ministry Aurors! Drop your wands and come down slowly!' a voice replied.

As one, the twins filled the space in front of them with Shield Charms. "I think we'll make sure who you are, first," Fred drawled. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night on a weekend? Pubs close early?"

"We're here to question you," the voice said, sounding very annoyed at being questioned himself under these circumstances.

"About…?" Fred prompted, with false politeness.

"We'll discuss that with each of you during questioning," the voice snapped.

"Each of us?" George didn't like the sound of that. "Who d'you intend to question?"

"I have orders to question _all_ of you," the Auror behind the lights growled angrily. "Each of you, and each of your wives. You are doing yourselves no favors by not cooperating!"

Fred and George glanced at one another, each with the same thought — this was about Harry. It had to be. They both glanced back at Ron.

"What?" Ron whispered apprehensively. "I didn't do anything!"

"You better not have," Fred whispered back, threateningly. "They're going to question all of us, probably separately and probably about Harry."

"Oh," Ron said, looking even more apprehensive now. "Er —"

"Oh, bollocks, " George snapped. He cast a Silencing Charm around the three of them before asking, "You _did_ do something, didn't you?!"

"What was it?" Fred demanded.

Ron sighed. "I sent a few letters to Malfoy."

"About what?"

"Saying that he should, um, investigate Harry a bit more closely. But I used an Anony-Quill!"

"Oh, Merlin's pants," Fred groaned. "He probably traced it to us."

"Lower your wands!" the Auror said again, more insistently. "You have three seconds —"

"We have to figure out what to tell these guys," Fred began, but —

"That's it! Take 'em!" the Auror shouted, and several Stunners bounced off their Shields. "Again!" More bangs and red flashes as Stunners expended themselves."

"Hold 'em," Fred muttered to George, then suddenly turned his wand back on Ron. Before Ron could react Fred said softly, "_Obliviate_!" and Ron suddenly got a faraway look in his eyes, like he had just awakened.

"Hope I got everything," Fred whispered to George, then canceled the Silencing Charm and shouted, "Oi! All right, we give up, we're lowering our wands!"

The twins offered no resistance as Disarming Charms relieved them of their wands and Aurors stormed up the stairs, grabbing each of them in turn and hustling them down into the shop. More Aurors ran upstairs. Fred smiled slightly as they tripped the intruder spells set for anyone other than friends and family of the Weasleys. There were going to be some rather disconcerted Aurors getting anatomy-switching hexes removed before any of them were questioned. Which, he added glumly to himself, wasn't going to make up for the yelling-at he was going to get from his wife when she was awakened by an Auror with his arse where his face ought to be.

=ooo=

Hogwarts was a rather busy place late at night, even on weekends, Harry reflected, having passed a few more pairs of prefects patrolling corridors, more than a few pairs of students snogging in corners, and one rather inquisitive Kneazle that seemed to stare at him right through his Cloak for quite a while before going its own way.

He'd also caught a glimpse of Nearly Headless Nick on the fifth floor as the Gryffindor house ghost floated out of one wall, across the corridor in front of him, and into another. Ghosts were another aspect of the whole "soul" thing he and Monroe had been debating the past few months; it was difficult to come across even one in most British towns, even those with a wizarding population, but Hogwarts had something like two dozen of them: four official House ghosts: Nearly Headless Nick, the Bloody Baron, the Fat Friar and the Gray Lady, along with Myrtle and Professor Binns, to name but a few. If they were merely afterimages impressed upon this world because of an unexpected or violent death, rather than actual souls, what would it take to dissipate them, and should anyone do so, unless there really was an afterlife waiting for them? Those were the kinds of questions he and James had been going back and forth with.

Once on the seventh floor, Harry stopped at a quiet corner and brought out the thing he'd been anxious to try again since returning to Hogwarts — the Marauder's Map. He pulled the large blank piece of parchment out of his pouch and tapped it with his wand, murmuring, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Lines began flowing across the blank parchment, creating a map of the castle complete with labeled dots indicating the person they represented. When Fred and George had given him this, they said they believed it was part of the original Hogwarts security system. What they _didn't_ know was that Harry knew that Remus Lupin, who had taught Defense for a year at Hogwarts, was the Moony named as one of its authors, along with Prongs, Padfoot and Wormtail, who were in reality Harry's father James, his best friend Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew. An unlikely quartet, Harry had thought at the time. Far from being nearly 800 years old, the Marauer's Map had only been around since the mid 1970's, when Lupin, Black, Pettigrew and his father had been in their upper years at the school. Lupin had promised to tell him sometime how they'd created it, but he'd never gotten around to it, and he was too busy these days for Harry to bother him over it. But he really should — the Map was extraordinary magic, and Harry was very interested in how students who weren't even fully-qualified wizards had managed to create it.

But on to his primary use for the Map right now, which was to find out how many students or staff members were near the corridor where the Room of Requirement was located, and to check whether James Monroe had made it into the Room or not. At the moment, Harry saw, no one was in the corridor in question, not even Monroe, which was a good thing. Still carrying the Map, and crouching slightly to keep his feet hidden, Harry made his way to the corridor.

"Mischief managed." He folded the still-disappearing Map and slipped it back into his pouch, then took off the Cloak and did the same with it, and stood regarding the blank wall where the door to the Room of Requirement would appear. Assuming Monroe was in there, Harry had to send him a signal that would unambiguously identify him. That would be easy enough to do.

Harry placed the tip of his wand against the wall, activated a spell, then said, "Recognition code 927, I am a potato." The spell would project his words through the wall to the other side.

It was nearly a minute, however, before a door formed on Harry's side of the wall and cracked open a bit. A pair of eyes stared out at Harry, and the door opened wide, revealing a tired-looking James Monroe. "That had to be you," he grinned at Harry.

"What have you found out —" Harry began, moving to come inside, but Monroe put out a hand, stopping him, then stepped outside.

"Don't let the door go shut!" Harry said quickly, and Monroe nodded, took out his wand and conjured a brick in his other hand. He placed the brick in the doorway so the door would remain open.

"Before you go in there," he prefaced, "I need to let you in on what I've found. Apparently the four Founders transferred a part of themselves into the castle itself. Like a Horcrux, but also _not_ like one."

Harry was intrigued. This was just the break they'd been hoping for! In fact it wildly exceeded their expectations! "How so?" he asked excitedly.

"Whatever they did, it didn't require murder to complete the ritual," Monroe explained. "I don't know if the statue of Slytherin in the Chamber is a Horcrux or not, I haven't had time to go back and check."

"You've been here something like ten hours now," Harry reminded him.

Monroe nodded excitedly. "Right, I've been busy learning spells from the Founders! The Room's full of old book with Interdict-encrypted spells in them. When I show them a spell I can't read, they can, once they read it to me, _I can understand it_!"

"So that's it!" Harry all but shouted. "We can beat the Interdict!"

"Yeah," Monroe agreed, then began to sit down. A chair appeared beneath him, and he leaned forward wearily.

"Are you okay?" a suddenly-worried Harry asked him.

"Tired," Monroe muttered. "I've been afraid to stop talking to them or leave the Room — I wasn't sure I could get back in if I left."

"How did you find a room with the Four Founders in it?" Harry wanted to know.

"Not sure. I wanted to find out what you and Slytherin's statue talked about down in the Chamber," Monroe replied, tiredly rubbing his eyes. "Apparently only the Four Founders could answer that question. I don't know. I've wondered why nobody else has come across them before."

"Maybe someone has," Harry speculated. He could imagine one other person who might've had the wherewithal to find and talk to the Four Founders.

"Who?" Monroe asked, then realized who Harry was thinking of. "Oh, you mean Voldemort."

"Yes." Harry's voice was grim. "If that happened, I'm not sure why he's not ruling Britain — or the world — right now."

"Then maybe he didn't," Monroe suggested. "I mean — if you think he destroyed the Basilisk after taking Slytherin's Interdict-level spells from it, why wouldn't he have destroyed the Founders' statues?"

"Why don't we go ask them?" Harry said.

=ooo=

Ginny, dressed in only her nightgown and robe, had been led into the kitchen of her and Dean's apartment and seated in a kitchen chair. The table had been Vanished and the two Aurors sat facing her in the other chairs. Dean was presumably in the other room with two different Aurors, undergoing the same procedure.

She had been advised of her rights (which at the moment weren't very useful, since she was not yet charged with anything) and asked if she would submit to interrogation under Veritaserum. The alternative, the two Aurors told her, would mean being charged with _obstruction of justice_ (a term borrowed from Muggle legalese meaning, she wasn't being completely cooperative) and a full-scale investigation into her activities would be conducted while she was detained in Azkaban. A very unpleasant alterative, to be sure.

Ginny had nodded agreement, not speaking, and the senior Auror told her to answer verbally. "I agree," she said, adding, "Pursuant to Section Two of the Unified Wizards' Code of 2012, paragraph 14."

The senior Auror smiled mirthlessly. "I see you know your rights, Mrs. Thomas," he said, his voice low and rumbling. He was a large man, with perhaps a bit of giant blood in him, as his head reached nearly to the ceiling of the room when he stood up; he'd had to stoop to walk through doorways. "I wonder why you feel the need to invoke that particular right."

"Somehow I don't see you reminding me of its existence," Ginny replied, curtly. The law she'd quoted guaranteed that if no charges were filed as a result of her interrogation, any transcripts or Pensieve memories generated from her questioning would be destroyed. The only place interrogation could exist was in the minds of the individuals who were directly involved in it.

"Very well," the big Auror said. "Give it to her," he said to the other Auror, a younger man only a few years out of Auror Training. The younger Auror handed Ginny a glass of water containing three drops of Veritaserum.

Ginny took the glass and calmly drank it, passing the empty glass back to the Aurors. "Go ahead," she said. "Ask your questions."

"In a minute," the big Auror said. "Give it a while to take effect."

Ginny sat impassively, looking at the two men in turn: the big Auror made the chair he was sitting in look like a child's chair, and the younger Auror who kept stealing glances at his senior counterpart. "I would like to get some sleep tonight," she said at last.

"I'm sure you would," the big Auror drawled. He smiled a crooked smile. "But we have miles to go before you sleep, Mrs. Thomas. Miles to go before you sleep."


	20. A Conversation with the Founders, Part 2

**Chapter Twenty  
><strong>**A Conversation with the Founders, Part 2**

_Updated_ 9/15/2012

=ooo=

Harry stepped into the Room of Requirement, staring at the four statues of the Founders that faced him in a semicircle as he moved to the center of the room. He recognized each of them in turn: the tall, elegant figure of Rowena Ravenclaw; the broad, imposing Godric Gryffindor; the brooding Salazar Slytherin and the friendly, matronly Helga Hufflepuff.

There was a table in front of the four statues, with several books lying open on it. Glancing down at them, Harry read only nonsense words. The spells in this book were protected by the Interdict of Merlin. Harry glanced back at Monroe, who had conjured another chair near the door and sat down again, content to let Harry talk to the Founders on his own, then looked at the four statues again. "You are the Founders, I take it," he said.

"We are the Founders," the voice of Rowena Ravenclaw answered. "You are James Monroe's friend Harry Potter. We remember you from the days you attended Hogwarts."

"You do?" Harry smiled in surprise. "I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to meet you then. I didn't realize I made that much of an impression here at Hogwarts."

"Your humility does not seem genuine," another woman's voice, Helga Hufflepuff, spoke. "You achieved many great successes while within our walls. We would be unsurprised to learn you achieved much success outside them as well."

"I have," Harry agreed. "You're right, and I apologize for my disingenuousness. There are things I have failed to achieve, however, which is what brings me here to talk with you."

"The Interdict of Merlin," a thin, hollow voice spoke, and Harry recognized it as Salazar Slytherin. "Your friend Monroe has spoken to us of it. Merlin was our student, yet he dared presume himself to be greater than us!"

"He _was_ greater," Harry argued. "He united the wizards in a common cause, bringing them together in order that they might guide and govern themselves by law rather than by rule of might. Your greatest contribution to wizardkind, beyond this castle, was to divide students against one another by sorting them into four Houses named after yourselves."

"That was not our intention!" the voice of Godric Gryffindor spoke forcefully. "We wished students to benefit from their natural strengths, and that is best encouraged by like minds!"

"And yet much knowledge has been lost over the years," Harry pointed out. "Even between those of 'like minds,' because of the Interdict."

"We wish to remedy that," the voice of Ravenclaw answered.

"I do as well," Harry concurred.

"We have been reading spells from these books that your friend Monroe has been showing us," Helga Hufflepuff said. "He will be able to teach them to others, and they will be able to teach them as well."

"That will help," Harry agreed. "But it would be better if we found a way to break the Interdict altogether. Then magical knowledge could not fall into obscurity because no living person knows a spell by heart — spells could be relearned from books, which is what books were meant to be used for in the first place."

"The Ministry probably won't like that," Monroe spoke from behind Harry.

Harry replied over his shoulder. "That didn't stop you from learning Indicted-protected spells from the Founders, did it?"

"No, it didn't," Monroe agreed. "But then, I'm a knowledge junkie."

"So am I," Harry turned back to the Founders. "Can you help me break the Interdict?"

"We do not know the spell Merlin used," Ravenclaw answered. "And we cannot cast spells ourselves; our minds are preserved within these walls, but magic is created by living beings, not stones."

"I understand that," Harry said. He didn't think it was true, but he wasn't going to argue the point. "But you can still help me and James think through what the Interdict must do to prevent written spells from being comprehended unless they have passed from one mind to another."

"We can try," Ravenclaw answered, and the voices of the other statues murmured their assent.

Harry picked up a book. "Then perhaps we should return to these spells," he said. "Maybe they will show us a way to defeat the Interdict."

=ooo=

"Well, well," Fred Weasley said scornfully. "Look what the Kneazle dragged in."

Draco Malfoy walked up to where Weasley was seated, in front of the main counter at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. He'd been bound securely to the chair, his arms pinned to his sides with heavy ropes and his wand confiscated, but he still wore a sneer of disdain when he saw the Head Auror. They would see how long that sneer would last, Draco thought, when his Aurors began questioning him about the letters that had been coming into their offices.

"What have you done with my brothers?" Fred demanded, looking up at the Head Auror. Malfoy ignored the question and nodded to Vincent Crabbe, who then stepped in front of Weasley, blocking his view of Maloy

"You know why we're here," Crabbe said in his surprisingly soft voice, not asking a question but stating it as a fact.

"No clue," Fred replied. "Unless you can't sleep. For that I can recommend a good sleeping potion, one that will give you very interesting dreams. And where are my brothers?"

"Your brothers are being questioned separately," Crabbe answered. "As are your wives. And I think you do know why we're here — it's about those letters to the Ministry written with a Weasley-charmed quill," he continued. "They've given us some pretty interesting information on what Harry Potter's been doing for the past few months. It looks like your brother Ron's been sending them to us."

"Pffft," Fred snorted. "Ron's no friend of Harry's but he'd never rat him out, even if whatever's in those letters happened to be true, which I doubt."

Crabbe smiled. "So you know what's in those letters?"

"Nope," Fred shook his head. "But I know Harry."

"Yeah, that's what we're hoping," Crabbe said. He pulled a small vial from his robe. "Can you guess what this is?"

Fred's eyes narrowed. "Veritaserum," he muttered. "But you can't give me that without my permission unless I'm charged with a crime." He tried to look around Crabbe. "Are you charging me with a crime, Malfoy?"

"Not at the moment," Malfoy replied casually. "But if you don't agree to take the Veritaserum then we'll charge you with obstruction of justice, begin a full-scale investigation into you and your family's activities, and give you the Veritaserum anyway."

"Nicely played," Fred said sarcastically. "I suppose I should remind you at this point of the Mental Privacy Act of 2012." It was the same law Ginny had referred to although she had used the legal description rather than the popular name. "If you can't charge me with anything because of what I say under Veritaserum, it's illegal for you to keep any records of our conversation beyond your own memories."

"I'm acquainted with the law," Malfoy said evenly. Pretty much everyone being questioned under Veritaserum referred to it these days. "But you'd better hope we find out you're _squeaky clean_ when we start questioning you."

"Bring it on, then," Fred said.

Malfoy gestured at Crabbe to continue. The big man took out his wand and conjured a glass filled with water, then uncorked the vial and let three drops of the liquid inside fall into the glass. He held the glass up to Weasley's lips, being careful not to spill any. "Let me know when he's ready," the big Auror said to his assistant, then stepped back to wait for the potion to reach full effectiveness. He glanced back at Malfoy, who nodded and left to check on the other interrogations going on. Once they had completed the questioning, Malfoy would gather his men to compare the results. And from there, he hoped, he would have enough evidence to bring in Potter for trying to break the Interdict, a change to the balance of wizarding power that could have far-reaching implications, not just in Britain, but around the world.

=ooo=

"No, I don't know anything about letters sent to the Ministry," Luna Weasley replied, with a vaguely pleasant smile at the Auror questioning her. "I wouldn't think my husband would, either. He doesn't like Harry very much, but I can't imagine Ron wanting to inform on him to the Ministry; if there was anything to expose I would have known and suggested my father interview him for _The Quibbler_. My father appreciates my insights in these matters, you see."

Auror Willem Hoskins stared at the woman bound to the chair in the back office of Weasleys' Wireless Wonderland, where they had taken the three women for separate questioning. He'd been warned that she could a bit — off. That warning was proving to be true.

"Alright, then," Hoskins said, trying to make himself sound stern and authoritative. "We're going to question you under Veritaserum —"

"Oh, _that_ should be interesting," Luna smiled brightly. "I've never tried that before."

"Do you understand that if you refuse we will charge you with obstruction of justice and —"

"But why would I refuse?" Luna asked, her already protuberant eyes growing even larger in surprise.

"Er, you might be lying?" Hoskins suggested.

"Well, I suppose that is possible, but I have no reason to lie," Luna said. "You know, it would be fun to try an experiment."

"An _experiment_?" Hoskins said, confused. "What kind of experiment?"

"You ask me the questions you were going to ask before giving me the Veritaserum," Luna suggested, "and then ask them again afterwards, and we'll see if my answers change."

Hoskins blinked in utter confusion. That might actually be interesting in some ways —

The junior Auror assisting in this interview gave him a disapproving look. "Hoskins, are you really thinking of doing that?! I want to go home and get some sleep, not conduct some experiment that a potential criminal wants us to do!"

"I'd like to get some sleep, too," Luna said matter-of-factly. "But it looks like the Ministry had different plans for all of us."

"She's right about that, Daniels," Hoskins said to his partner.

"Just give her the Verita and let's get on with this," Daniels, though still a junior Auror, was Hoskins' senior at the Ministry by about 5 minutes (they'd both graduated from the same Auror Training class) growled. Hoskins nodded and conjured a cup with water in it, then added the three drops of the colorless, odorless potion and held it to the woman's lips to drink.

=ooo=

"This isn't going to do you any good," Verity Weasley said, as the Auror removed the glass from her lips. "I don't know a damn thing about any letters about Harry Potter being sent to the Ministry."

"Then you shouldn't be arguing with us about answering these questions," the Auror, a ten-year veteran of the Auror Department, snapped back at her.

"I wouldn't be arguing if it wasn't _three in the bloody morning_!" Verity shouted. "You might have come by or owled us to report in for questioning, not break down our doors in the middle of the night and take us prisoner!"

"You're not a prisoner," Elric Powell the Auror said calmly.

Verity looked around at the cords binding her to the chair. "This may be your idea of a fashion statement but it's pretty damned uncomfortable, if you ask me."

"We have our reasons," the other Auror, a younger but equally no-nonsense fellow who regarded Verity with suspicion mixed with a vague feeling of attraction — her nightgown was quite revealing up top, and her housecoat barely covered her ample bosoms.

"I can guess," Verity snapped. "We're Weasleys, so you automatically suspect us!"

Which was in fact true to a degree, but neither Auror was going to confirm that aloud. "Just calm down," Powell told her. "When the Veritaserum kicks in we'll ask our questions and that'll be that. Do you want to argue with us or do you want to get this over with?"

"Right," Verity said, bitterly. "Have at it, then."

=ooo=

"State your name," the Auror said to him.

"Ronald Bilius Weasley," Ron said, dully. The Veritaserum had sapped away any inclination he might have to withhold any relevant information to questions asked.

Gregory Goyle watched Ron Weasley for several moments, contemplating his own presence here. He'd expected Mr. Malfoy to take this one; the evidence clearly pointed toward him. Goyle had been surprised when he found his name in the space opposite Ron Weasley as the lead interrogator. He'd pointed this out to Crabbe, and from what Vincent told him before they left to do these interviews, the Head Auror didn't think Ron Weasley was the only person responsible for those letters to him.

"Did you write letters to Head Auror Malfoy with information about his activities over the past few months?" Goyle asked.

"I — yes," Ron answered.

"How did you obtain that information?" Goyle asked.

Ron blinked. "I — I hear things. People talk. You know."

"What people?" Goyle persisted. "Be specific."

"Well, my brothers and their wives talk about Potter all the time," Ron said, frowning. "They think he's perfect, but he's not really, he's just like anyone else. They don't think he'd steal someone's girlfriend, but he would."

Goyle's lips set in a thin line, an almost-smile. It was known that Weasley had a bit of a crush on Hermione Granger, back in the day. They had even dated for a while during seventh year, after she and Potter had some kind of falling out. There were rumors about her and Mr. Malfoy, too, but nobody mentioned them anymore, at least not where Draco might have ears present.

"Did you talk to anyone else about Potter?" Goyle asked. "Anyone at all?"

"My sister and I discuss him over lunch sometimes," Ron said. "But she thinks he's perfect, too — she's always defending him."

"Do you remember who told you he was trying to break the Interdict of Merlin?"

Weasley remained silent, looking confused. Goyle repeated the question.

"I — don't remember," Ron said at last.

"When was the last time you saw your sister?"

"Yesterday, at lunch."

"Did she say anything to you about Potter?"

"I don't remember."

"Was there anyone sitting near you that you might have overheard?"

"No, I don't think so. We were sitting outside a café near our shops, just off Diagon Alley proper. We were the only ones sitting outside."

This was a bit frustrating, Goyle thought. "So what do you remember your sister saying about Potter?" Sometimes, even with Verita, you had to ask a question more than once before any information bubbled up in the subject's head.

"I don't remember," Ron said again.

"But you remember writing the letters to Mr. Malfoy?"

"Y-yes."

"Do you or don't you?"

"Yes, I remember. I definitely, definitely remember doing that."

Goyle rubbed the side of his face. A very clear memory surrounded by vague ones was sometimes an indication that a False Memory Charm had been used on the subject multiple times. Some people didn't retain false memories layered one on top of another very well. "Check him for False Memory Charms," he said to the younger Auror with him, Erickson.

Ericson nodded and waved his wand over Weasley's head several times. He looked up at Goyle, frowning. "If he was charmed it was done very well, the detection spells are inconclusive, sir."

"Ergh," Goyle grunted. Ericson was young but he'd received an Outstanding for his Charms N.E.W.T. at Hogwarts and his detection spells were top notch. That result was not what he wanted to hear. They would have to wait and see what the other Weasley interrogations turned up, especially Ginny's. Ministry intel on her and Ron Weasley showed they talked relatively often, at least once a week for an hour or more. What didn't make sense was why Ginny Thomas would try to pin those letters on her brother, if she was the one responsible. The Weasleys were supposed to be a tight-knit family; something like this was atypical for them.

But his was not to reason why, Goyle knew. He just followed the boss's orders. He took out his wPhone and ran the voice-to-text app. "Interrogation of R. Weasley complete. Please advise further orders." He selected Mr. Malfoy's contact and sent the message. It was nearly a minute before there was a response from Draco's phone, sent to everyone out on the mission.

**All lead interrog Aurors report to Ministry HQ at 0400 for debriefing. Junior Aurors remain with subjects.**

"You got that?" Goyle asked Ericson, who nodded glumly. "Don't worry, it shouldn't take long to sort things out," he told the younger Auror, who shrugged noncommittally.

Goyle checked the time on his phone: 3:38 a.m. That gave him plenty of time to get back to the Ministry and get his interrogation report written for the meeting, in case Mr. Malfoy wanted notes. Which he would, because if he decided to bring someone in based on the results of the interrogation, they'd be going out yet again before they were finished for the night.

=ooo=

At 3:38 a.m. on Sunday morning the Auror Department offices were dark and empty, as was normally the case on early weekend mornings. Malfoy ran a tight ship, but not so tight that his men had to work through the weekends to get their assignments done. If he worked, they worked; but if he was home enjoying time with his wife and their families, his men did too.

At 3:39 a.m. the Auror Department experienced a sudden influx of personnel. Nearly a dozen men were appearing, one right after another, and moving quickly to their individual offices to prepare their reports for the meeting in less than 20 minutes. Everyone knew the Head Auror would expect nothing less than complete preparedness when it came time for their reports.

Malfoy had the eight senior Aurors on the interrogation team gather in the conference room for the debriefing. The men all looked tired, he noted; there was usually idle banter before meetings but this time the men were scanning the notes they'd made or sipping hastily-made tea from the department's snack area.  
>Malfoy was tired as well. He hadn't participated directly in the interrogations; if he brought someone in because of these questionings he didn't want charges of conflict of interest leveled against him. It was likely to happen anyway; the Weasleys filed complaints against the Auror Department almost perfunctorily whenever they were questioned.<p>

At 4:02 a.m. Malfoy called the debriefing to order. "I know it's late," he said, by way of an apology, the only one everyone there knew they'd hear from him. "I want to see if we have anything we can take action on before we wrap things up for the night. Mr. Crabbe, if you would give us your summary of the interviews…"

The big Auror, whom Malfoy had chosen to gather and correlate the reports, put down his cup of tea (which looked quite miniscule in his large hands) and stood. "Just to review our activities over the past few hours," he said, handing out copies of his summary to the others, "I interviewed Fred Weasley, Kevin Whitby interviewed George Wealsey, and Greg Goyle interviewed Ron. As for their wives, Elric Powell interviewed Verity Weasley, Doran Merryweather interviewed Angelina Weasley, and Willem Hoskins interviewed Luna Weasley. John Dawlish and Stuart Ackerly interviewed Ginny and Dean Weasley, respectively." Crabbe glanced over at the last Auror mentioned. "You all right there, Ackerly?" Acklerly had Portkeyed in with Dawlish but the older Auror had led him to a chair in the conference room and he hadn't moved since then.

"Dean Thomas hit him with a Confundus Charm as we entered their apartment," Dawlish spoke up. "I conducted both of the interviews."

Crabbe cleared his throat before continuing. "None of the interviewees admitted to any knowledge of the owls to Mr. Malfoy except, as expected, Ronald Weasley. However, as Mr. Goyle reported, Weasley himself seemed unable to say who had told him about what was written in them. Other than his brothers and their wives, the only person he has regular contact with is his sister Ginny."

Malfoy looked at Dawlish, who had interviewed Ginny Thomas. "You reported nothing unusual during your interview, and Mrs. Thomas didn't give you any further leads. How did she act during the interview?"

John Dawlish stood. Though not as big as Vincent Crabbe and older by several decades, the man still looked imposing. "She was pretty pissed off, of course." There were chuckles around the room. "I pressed her and her husband pretty hard for details about anything they might have overheard, in their office or from other wizards about Potter; Mrs. Thomas said her brother Ron was the person who'd mentioned them to her. Her husband didn't know anything, either from Weasley himself, his brothers or Potter."

"And that puts us in a catch-22," Malfoy muttered. When he saw the blank looks some of the other Aurors were giving him he added, "It's a Muggle term, it means we're chasing Kneazle tails." _Chasing a Kneazle's tail_ was common saying meaning you were caught in a situation you couldn't get out of.

"What about Pensieving Ron Weasley's memories?" Dawlish asked Malfoy. "I read in the summary that Ericson checked him for False Memory Charms, but the results were inconclusive. We probably need to delve deeper into his memories."

"Possibly." Malfoy appeared distracted, thinking of something else. After nearly a half-minute he took out his wPhone and dialed a number. It rang three times before a sleepy voice answered.

"What is it, Draco?" the Minister of Magic asked, a bit testily. "You know it's four-something in the morning, don't you?"

"Sorry, Minister," Draco said, not really meaning it. "Did I wake you?"

"What do you think?" Hermione snapped. "What do you need?"

"Is Harry with you?"

A moment of silence. "You called me to ask if Harry's here? Why didn't you call _him_?"

"I guess your number came to mind first," Malfoy lied. "Anyway, is he there?"

A sigh, then silence for some time. Malfoy could hear movement through the phone. Then, "…he's not here right now…"

"Uh-huh." Malfoy paused for a moment, letting her think. "Where do you think he is?"

"This goes right back to calling his phone, Draco," Hermione said, covering her concern with annoyance. "If you'd called him first you'd probably be talking to him right now."

"So you have no idea where he's at?" Malfoy dug at her a little more, then held the phone away from his mouth while he stifled a yawn.

Hermione was talking when he put the phone back to his ear. "…expect me to keep track of my husband every second, Draco. You're the one that doesn't trust him!"

"Just thought I'd check, Minister, sorry for the disturbance." Malfoy hung up before she could retort. "Potter's not at home," he told the other Aurors. "But I think I know where he's at."

"Where's that?" Dawlish wanted to know.

"At Hogwarts. The last letter I got said that he had gone to Hogwarts to visit the Chamber of Secrets. That's probably where he was when he found out we were searching his offices. I expect he went back there afterwards. And that's where we're going now." Malfoy turned to Crabbe and Goyle. "You two are with me. Dawlish, you're going too. The rest of you bring in the Aurors still at the interview sites."

"What if Potter isn't at Hogwarts?" Vincent Crabbe asked.

"If he's been there, we'll figure out what he did while he was there and pick up his trail," Malfoy decided. "We'll question anyone who talked to him, including the Headmaster, and find out what they know. Make it happen."

The Aurors got busy with preparations to go to Hogwarts. There were warrants to fill out, Portkeys to authorize and enchant, both for the Hogwarts team and the interview teams. Crabbe called out assignments to the senior and junior Aurors, who quickly followed his orders.

In less than a minute everything and everyone was ready. Malfoy and the senior Aurors on his team vanished, heading toward Hogwarts. The remaining Aurors headed out to the interview sites to bring in the junior Aurors who had stayed with the interviewees. The Auror office was once again empty.

=ooo=

Moments later four Aurors appeared just outside the gates of Hogwarts in a whirl of wind and flashing colors. Malfoy frowned.

"I don't see anyone on sentry duty," he commented. "What's Longbottom thinking —" A loud snore interrupted him.

He stepped forward and peered through the gates. Off to one side, slumped forward in a rocking chair large enough to accommodate two full-sized men, was a large sleeping form, dressed in a huge mokeskin coat and furry boots the size of dustbins. He wore no hat but a large tangle of salt-and pepper hair and a great beard all but covered his face. He snored loudly again.

"Hagrid," Malfoy said loudly. "Wake up!"

The snoring ceased and a moment later the half-giant slowly opened one eye. "Eh?" he grunted. His open eye scanned the grounds between himself and Hogwarts. "Did somebody say somethin'?"

"Over here, Hagrid," Malfoy said, annoyed at how slowly the old oaf was responding. What kind of security was he supposed to provide for the school? "Let us in."

Hagrid finally opened both eyes, and stared sleepily at the group of Aurors standing outside the gates. "Eh? Izzat you, Malfoy?" His eyebrows knitted in disapproval. "Kinda early ter be showin' up at Hogwarts, aincha? Breakfast ain't even being served yet."

"We're here to execute a search warrant," Malfoy stated, holding up the parchment document.

"Fer what?" Hagrid wanted to know, then chuckled. "Didjer lose one a' yer men or somethin'?"

"The search warrant is for Harry Potter," Malfoy said, then pointed at the gates. "Now let us in or I'll have my men arrest you for obstruction of justice."

"Awright, awright, hold yer thestrals." Hagrid heaved himself to his feet and fished an enormous key ring out of a pocket of his coat. Fingers the size of a chair leg unerringly found a large steel key that he slid into the lock holding the chains around the gates. The lock opened and the chains slid free. Hagrid pulled open the gates, allowing the four Aurors entrance. They began walking toward the school, but Hagrid spoke again. "Hang on a minnit, I'll walk up with yeh." He quickly slid the chains through the gate again and fastened them with the lock, then gestured impatiently up the path to the school. "Well, go on, then, yer in sech a great tearin' hurry."

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Hagrid stopped at the base of the stairs leading up to the entrance, which opened as the Aurors trudged up the steps. Headmaster Neville Longbottom appeared.

"Head Auror Malfoy," he said, cordial but not overly friendly. "To what do I owe the honor of this rather early visit to our school?"

Malfoy, already annoyed by Hagrid's attitude, didn't bother with being cordial. "We have a warrant to search the school for Harry Potter." He held up the warrant for the Headmaster to see. When Longbottom reached for it Malfoy pulled it back out of his reach.

"Only four of you?" Longbottom smiled. "It's going to take you a while. What makes you think Harry is even here?"

"I have intelligence to that effect," Draco said, curtly. "Also, I understand you had the Weasley brothers install some security spells after you became headmaster."

Neville was no longer smiling. "Where did you hear something like that?"

"You'd be surprised what Veritaserum can get people to reveal," Draco replied evenly. "Are you going to deny it, Headmaster? Not telling us the truth can be seen as an obstruction of justice."

"Fine," Neville said, annoyed. "There are several security spells to help me locate people within Hogwarts." The Weasleys had set up the spells, at significant cost, when Neville took over the Head's position at the school. They'd told him they'd learned about the original security system of the school when they'd attended, and had managed to recreate most of it, with a few bells and whistles of their own. "Harry was here yesterday afternoon, but he must've left long before we closed down the school for the night."

"That's what we're here to find out," Malfoy said. "Do you know when he left?"

"Step inside," Neville said. "We'll find out." He and the four Aurors walked into the Entrance Hall. Neville glanced upward, addressing the ceiling. "Security, when did Harry Potter arrive at Hogwarts yesterday?"

A cool female voice, similar to the one at the visitor's entrance to the Ministry, spoke. "Harry Potter arrived here at 1:47 p.m. yesterday afternoon."

"When did he leave?" Neville asked.

"He left at 6:49 p.m.," the cool voice replied. Neville gave Malfoy a _told-you-so_ look.

"What about the person who was with him?" Malfoy persisted. "James Monroe."

"How do you —" Neville began, then decided not to press the issue. Obviously Malfoy knew quite a bit about what had been going on here at Hogwarts yesterday. Was someone here at the school feeding him information? Or did he have some kind of "hook" into the security spells the Weasleys had set up for him? If he'd questioned them under Veritaserum it was entirely probable, Neville had to admit. Instead he asked, "When did James Monroe arrive at Hogwarts yesterday?"

"James Monroe arrived here at 1:47 p.m. yesterday afternoon."

"And when did he leave?"

"He has not left yet," the voice answered.

Longbottom looked surprised, but Malfoy smiled. "Why doesn't that surprise me," the Head Auror said, rhetorically. "Where is he now?" he asked the Headmaster.

"Locate James Monroe."

"James Monroe cannot be located," the security system's voice responded.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Malfoy muttered. "Can it tell us his last known location?"

"Where was James Monroe's last known location?" Neville asked, curious himself how someone could still be here and yet be invisible to the supposedly infallible security system. The Weasleys had told him it could locate _anyone_ within the school, whether they were living, dead, disguised by Polyjuice or Animagus magic or even hidden within trunks supposedly impenetrable to detection magic.

"On the seventh floor of the castle," the voice answered.

"Oh," Malfoy said, nodding. "Of course." He knew what was on the seventh floor. And so, from the look on his face, did Neville Longbottom. "Follow me, men," he said to the other Aurors. They set off up the grand staircase, heading toward the seventh floor, with the Headmaster following closely behind them. Their warrant was for Harry Potter, not Monroe, but Neville wanted to find out, even more than they did, just what the man was doing up in the Room of Requirement without his permission.

=ooo=

"Wow," Harry said. He stepped away from the statues of the Founders, closing the last book of pre-Interdict spells he'd been looking at. "Just, _wow_."

Monroe, who was massaging the temples of his throbbing head, nodded painfully. "Yeah," he agreed. "I think we overdid it, though."

"Who cares?" Harry said, opening the book again. "I can read all these spells now! And frankly, they're astonishing."

Harry and Monroe had spent the past several hours going through the old spell and potions books, having the Founder statues read them aloud so they could learn and understand them. Monroe had a few hours head-start on Harry, having been in the Room of Requirement longer than he had, but Harry, spurred by the prospect of gaining the old knowledge, knowledge that he hoped would bring with it a way to hasten the beginning of the Magical Singularity and perhaps the end of the Interdict itself, had pushed hard with the Founders, continuing on even when Monroe stopped to rest his brain. His own head throbbing as well, Harry had nevertheless committed spell after spell, ritual after ritual, to memory.

It hadn't hurt when one of the Founders read the Memory Enhancing ritual to them, and both Harry and Monroe decided to try it on themselves. The 40-minute ritual included drinking a potion, which the Room thoughtfully provided, and repetition of a series of chants, written in ancient runes, that gave both of them an eidetic memory. It also produced a blinding headache in each of them, a headache that would not respond to pain-relief spells, being a side-effect of the ritual itself. But they could now precisely recall each of the spells they had memorizes as well as any spell they had ever learned, along with most of the other memories of their lives, both magical and mundane.

"Some very powerful spells," Monroe said. "Permanent Transfiguration. Summoning spells that work across any distance and transport the object to you like Apparition. Spells to extend life and youth three or four times the normal limits of a wizard's lifetime. Magical cures for vision and hearing problems — you would never have to wear glasses again, Harry."

"And spells to multiply food and jewels," Harry added. "I could buy one meal and never have to buy one again, assuming I only wanted to eat that one meal over and over again. I could have clothes covered in emeralds and rubies if I wanted. I wonder if there's a spell to multiply gold and silver?"

"Which came first," Monroe asked rhetorically, "the Philosopher's Stone or the gold-making spell? Flamel made his Stone in the late 1300's or early 1400's. Historical records indicated his wife Perenelle died around 1412; he must have created the Stone by then and used it on her, pretending she died. He finally faked his own death six years later, in 1418. If Merlin died casting the Interdict around 1160 or so, as is commonly believed, the Interdict had been in effect 260 years by the time Flamel disappeared. It's possible that a lot of advanced magic disappeared from wizarding knowledge in that period of time; Flamel may have been the last man able to piece together enough of the ancient, powerful magic handed down orally to create the Stone."

Harry nodded, but he was only half-listening. He was thinking about his other books, the ones hidden in his Bat Cave. He really wanted to get some of those books — hell, _all_ of them — here in this room and have the Founders read them to him.

What he'd _really_ like to do, what he desperately _wanted_ to do, was to find a way to bring these statues to the Bat Cave and spend as much time as he needed going through those books, learning everything that was learnable from them. But, realistically, that wasn't going to happen, he knew. He and Monroe had already crammed several books worth of Interdict-protected spells in their heads, each, and they had to get out of here, get some rest, and figure out what they should do next with the knowledge the minds of the Founders had given to them. The headache the Memory Enhancing ritual had given him was beginning to fade, it felt like, and he hoped some sleep would relieve it even more.

"As much as I'd like to stay and continue learning more Interdict-protected spells," Harry said to Monroe. "I think we need to go home and get some rest. It's nearly morning — Hermione will probably wonder where I've been all night."

Monroe looked up at Harry. "Are you going to tell her where we've been?" he asked.

"No," Harry replied, earnestly. "She's already worried that Malfoy is looking for a way to discredit me with the Wizengamot using my relationship with the Muggle business community, both in Britain and globally."

Monroe snorted. "I'd think most members of the Wizengamot have their fingers in some Muggle pies themselves, anyway!"

Harry nodded. "But only indirectly, for the most part, so they rationalize to themselves that they're not really collaborating with Muggles — they think of it as 'taking advantage of a situation,' not collaborating or even partnering with them."

"And what are we going to do with this new magical knowledge we've gained?" Monroe asked, more pointedly. "Do you still intend to break the Interdict?"

Harry was silent for several moments. "I don't know," he said at last. "It may not be a good idea to break the Interdict."

"Because…" Monroe prompted, after a few moments of silence.

"Because there are people who may not be able to handle spells as powerful as we've seen in these books," Harry said, gesturing toward the table.

"Are _we_ able to handle them?" Monroe pondered. "Do you still feel like playing God?"

Harry looked at Monroe sharply. "What makes you ask that?"

"You told someone once that every time someone cries out in prayer and you can't answer, you feel guilty about not being God."

"I don't remember saying anything like that in front of you," Harry said, though he _had_ said that.

"It made a big impression on Neville," Monroe explained. "He discussed it with several people in his House, and they talked about it as well. I asked him about it directly during a quiet moment in one of Quirrell's battle exercises." He smiled. "Having an eidetic memory is pretty cool, huh?"

Harry gave a non-committal shrug. Maybe he _did_ still want to be God. But he wasn't going to say so aloud, even in front of Monroe. Some things in your life you learned not to wear on your sleeve. "Are you ready to go?"

"Sure," said Monroe. "I think I remember how to get back in here, if we come back. Which I think we —" He stopped talking for a moment. "Did you hear something?"

"Like what?" Harry asked. "We're the only ones here."

"Outside the wall," Monroe said, walking toward the wall where the door had been. He stopped before the door appeared. "I thought I heard something."

_Fap_, _fap_, _fap_. The sound of a hand slapping the wall. Harry and Monroe looked at one another. _Tap_, _tap_, _tap_. The next sounds were sharper, like someone tapping the wall with something. Like a wand.

"James Monroe, are you in there?" Neville's muffled voice came through the wall. "We know you haven't left the castle."

_We_? Harry took out his wand and pointed it at the wall. It was time to use one of the spells he'd learned, a powerful detection spell. "_Kitore salyudak_," he canted softly. The wall seemed to fade before his eyes, revealing Neville on the opposite side. There were four Aurors standing behind him: Malfoy, his two regulars Crabbe and Goyle, and John Dawlish. "Crap," Harry muttered.

"What did you see?" Monroe asked. "Was that the Headmaster?"

"Yeah, and he's got four Aurors with him," Harry said.

"Only _four_?" Monroe looked both surprised and amused.

"Maybe they don't think I'm with you," Harry said. "He only asked for you, not for both of us. Malfoy probably would have brought a whole squad of Aurors if he thought we were both here."

"He might have anyway," Monroe suggested. "We don't know where the rest of them are right now."

=ooo=

At that moment one Auror, Stuart Ackerly, appeared outside the apartment building where Dean and Ginny Weasley lived, and where junior Aurors Hal Perkins and Rene Aberjon were currently waiting for further orders. He trudged tiredly to the door and cast the recognition signal spell to alert the Aurors inside that another Auror wanted entrance.

There was no answering signal. Ackerly tried again, then a third time, with the same result. He cursed under his breath at the inconvenience. If Perkins and Aberjon had dozed off he was reporting them, mates or not! He waved his wand unobtrusively at the door, unlocking it, then entered. Protocol required calling for a backup when the recognition signal wasn't answered, but there was nobody back at department HQ, and he wasn't about to wake anyone else up. If he caught the two juniors asleep he'd put a false memory of answering the signal in one of them and let _them_ explain why Auror Ackerly had caught them having a kip!

Ackerly walked silently up to the Thomas' apartment, listening for any sounds that might tell him what was going on. He heard nothing. Trying the door, he found it open. That, too, was not according to protocol, especially in a Muggle apartment building. Ackerly slipped inside, looking around the apartment's living room. In the middle of the room there was a chair, a tall, light-skinned black man tied to it, slumped over unconscious. That was Dean Thomas, Ackerly knew; he frowned at the man who'd managed to Confund him as he and Dawlish entered the apartment several hours earlier. Of Perkins or Aberjon there was no sign, so Ackerly continued into the kitchen, where Ginny Thomas had been interrogated.

What Ackerly found there made him gasp. In the chair in the middle of the kitchen floor Junior Auror Perkins was slumped forward; his arms, tied behind the back of the chair, kept him from falling over. In a corner of the kitchen another body lay sprawled on the floor — Ackerly could see it was Aberjon. He automatically cast a spell toward Aberjon, a spell that told him the man was dead.

Rushing over to Perkins, Ackerly knelt down so he could see the man's face better. He pointed his wand at the man and cast _Rennervate_ on him. "Hal!" he said urgently, as Perkins came to, groaning. "What the hell happened here?"

"Weasley…" Perkins whispered. He looked up at Ackerly. His entire body was trembling. "Get out," he said hoarsely. "Run away."

Ackerly shook his head, confused. "Run, why, Hal? Why should I run?"

"Trap," Perkins said, straightening up. "Run."

"Run from who?" Ackerly persisted, looking around for the trap Perkins warned him of. "Is Ginny Weasley still here?"

"No," Perkins shook his head. His right hand came out from behind the chair. It held his wand. "_Avada Kedavra_!"

Ackerly fell over dead, a confused expression still on his face. Perkins shook his head in anguish even as he turned the wand on himself and repeated the Killing Curse. There was a flash of green and the apartment was silent once again.

It was several minutes before anything else happened; one of the chairs in the kitchen suddenly tipped over. It flowed and writhed, changing from a kitchen chair to the body of a man. The body of John Dawlish.


	21. The Ginny Factor

**Chapter Twenty-One  
><strong>**The Ginny Factor**

_Updated_ 9/29/2012

"Okay, so what do we do now?" Monroe wanted to know.

Harry shrugged. "I don't know if we need to do anything," he replied, casually. "You can't get into the Room of Requirement unless you know exactly what someone who's already inside needed. I would defy anyone to guess that we've summoned the essences of the four Founders to teach us pre-Interdict spell magic."

Monroe nodded ruefully; Harry had a point. "But that means we're stuck in here until they go away," he also pointed out. "All Malfoy has to do is rotate his Aurors to guard the entrance until we have to leave."

"Why would we have to leave?" Harry asked, in a bland tone.

"Well, because —" Monroe stopped and smiled. "You're right, we don't." The pre-Interdict spells and rituals they'd learned would allow them to stay here almost indefinitely. They could summon food, water, and most importantly, _more_ books with pre-Interdict spells in them, and have the Founders read them to Harry and him. And now, with their newly-Memory Enhanced minds, they would remember _every single_ spell, ritual, and potion recipe they learned. "So what do we do next?" he asked.

Harry thought for a while. "I don't know at the moment," he finally said. "Let me think about it a bit."

=ooo=

Revealment spells cast toward the wall where the Room of Requirement was supposed to appear showed nothing and no one beyond it, even though this was the last known location of James Monroe.

"Is there any way we can find out who's in there?" Malfoy asked Neville.

"Other than having them tell us, or figuring out exactly what they're using the room for, I doubt it," Neville replied.

"We could break through," Crabbe suggested.

Both Neville and Malfoy shook their heads. "I can't authorize that," Draco said.

"And I wouldn't allow it," Neville said, in a stern voice. Malfoy gave him an amused look but didn't argue the point. He turned to the other Aurors. "Suggestions, gentlemen?"

The Aurors shook their heads. "Headmaster?" Malfoy turned to Neville once again. "Anything you can think of? What about that magical security system, can it tell us who's inside?"

"No, I've already told you so," Neville answered, annoyed. "It can tell us everyone who's on school grounds, but the Weasleys could never make it work for the Room of Requirement. It can't see inside there at all."

Draco could see a way around that limitation, however. "It can tell us everyone who's entered Hogwarts but hasn't left," he pointed out.

Neville blinked. "Of course," he nodded. "Security," he said. "Tell us everyone who has entered Hogwarts and has not left yet."

"Vincent Crabbe," the cool voice recited. "Gregory Goyle, Draco Malfoy, James Monroe, Harry Potter —"

"Stop!" Draco called out, and Neville echoed the order, stopping the recitation. "That's interesting," he smirked. "Potter came back, apparently. Find out when he returned," he told Neville, who repeated the question.

"Harry Potter entered Hogwarts at twelve-fifteen a.m. this morning," the Security voice replied.

"Why didn't you tell me he'd returned when I asked you earlier?" Neville demanded.

"Your question about Harry Potter's arrivals and departures from Hogwarts referred to yesterday, not today," the cool voice replied. Neville snorted annoyance, shaking his head.

"So Potter and Monroe are in there," Malfoy pondered, staring at the blank wall. "But we can't make them come out and we can't get inside unless we know what they're using the Room for. That's a pretty problem."

"Sure we can't just bust in?" Crabbe muttered.

"_No_," Neville said. "You're not destroying the Room of Requirement —"

"Not if we can help it," Malfoy finished. "But if they're doing something in there that might compromise the Interdict of Merlin —"

"And what do you think something like that would take?" Neville interrupted in turn. "Wizards have been studying the Interdict for 800 years now; its scope has expanded from Britain to nearly the entire world — only the most remote, inaccessible reaches of the earth have not been touched by it. Since it has a limiting effect on the ability to communicate magical knowledge except from one mind to another, it is likely to remain in place forever."

"You don't know that," Malfoy objected.

"_You're_ the one that was with Harry when he figured all that out, back in our first year!" Neville countered. "Magical knowledge is being limited and lost over time! If you destroyed the Room of Requirement, for example, it's likely it could never be restored again — that's why you're not going to break into it!"

"I'm going to do what I have to, to bring Potter in!" Malfoy shouted back. "And he's going to find that out, right now!" He stepped close to the wall, then brought his wand up to his throat and cast _Sonorus_. He spoke, his amplified voice ringing throughout the corridor. "_Attention, occupants of the Room of Requirement. This is Head Auror Malfoy of the Ministry of Magic. You are hereby ordered to come out immediately_."

There was no response, but Malfoy hadn't really expected on. "_If you do not comply immediately, we will be forced to close down the school at once until you _do_ comply. All students will be dismissed and a permanent squad of Aurors will stand guard at the entrance until you surrender yourself to us_."

"Closing the school?" Neville said after uncovering his ears, when Malfoy finished speaking. "Is that really necessary?"

Malfoy pulled the wand away from his throat. "Without breaking down the wall, it's the best idea I've got. Don't forget, Headmaster, _you_ have a reason to want them out of that room, too — I assume Potter didn't tell you he was planning to go in the Room of Requirement when he showed up here yesterday."

"No," Neville had to admit. "He said he was going to show Monroe the Chamber of Secrets."

"So he betrayed your trust," Malfoy pointed out. "And you, one of his Chaos Legionaires to boot."

"Save your manipulations, Malfoy," Neville growled, but there was an uneasy expression on his face. "Harry must've had a good reason."

"That's what I'm worried about," Malfoy muttered. He turned to his men. "Dawlish, you and Goyle remain here on guard. Don't let any students or staff in this corridor until I return." Both men nodded. "Crabbe, you and I are going back to headquarters, I want you to work out a schedule to have at least two men here round the clock until further notice. I'll work out the details of the closing with the Board of Governors of the school."

"I'm coming with you," Neville announced, firmly. "I've got some things to say to the Board of Governors about that."

"Suit yourself," Malfoy shrugged. He and Crabbe walked off, followed by the Headmaster, leaving Dawlish and Goyle alone in the corridor.

=ooo=

It was several minutes before anyone spoke again in the seventh-floor corridor. Goyle had shaken his head after Malfoy and the others left, then took up a position near the wall across from the tapestry, but after a minute shook his head again and conjured a stool to sit on.

Dawlish watched this as he leaned against the same wall a short distance away, one eyebrow raised in a silent commentary. Goyle noticed this but pretended not to; he didn't care much for Dawlish, who was often overly critical of younger Aurors. When he and Crabbe had finally been admitted to Auror Training, after spending time with a private tutor who made sure they passed the requisite number of N.E.W.T.s needed during a special test session of the Examination Authority, Dawlish had been their squad instructor. Training under him had not been pleasant.

"What?" Goyle finally said, annoyed at the half-smirk on the older Auror's face.

Dawlish shook his head. "Nothing, son," he said with a shrug, but a moment later added, "I just noticed that Crabbe once again got the nod from the Head over you. That seems to happen quite a bit, doesn't it?"

"Not a big deal," Goyle said. "Vinnie's got seniority." _But not by much_, Goyle reminded himself.

"Well, if you're okay with it." Dawlish looked left and right down the corridor they were in. "Students will be up and about soon," he noted. "This wasn't a highly-used section of the seventh floor in my day, but there are staircases to other level accessible through this corridor — we should start getting some traffic soon."

"Well, you're the senior Auror here," Goyle pointed out. "How d'you want to handle it?"

Dawlish pointed down the corridor. "Most students will be coming from that direction," he said. "Go round the corner to the first intersection and stand guard there. Tell students this corridor is blocked until further notice. I'll do the same at the other end."

Goyle folded his arms across his chest. "The Head wanted us remain _here_ on guard," he reminded Dawlish.

"He also said don't let any students or staff in this corridor until he returned," Dawlish countered. "We can't stay here and do that as well. Don't worry, son, I'll take full responsibility."

Goyle smirked at the older Auror's attempt at manipulation, but shrugged and walked off down the corridor in the direction Dawlish had pointed.

When Goyle rounded the corner, Dawlish pointed his wand in that direction and softly spoke two Charms — a Silencing Charm and an Anti-Wizard Charm. Goyle would not hear anything coming from this corridor; if he tried to return he would experience a compulsion to move away, just as Muggles did when they ran into a Muggle-Repelling Charm. He cast the same two charms at the other end of the corridor.

An unpleasant sensation was beginning to well up inside Dawlish. The hour was almost up, he knew — it was good he'd gotten rid of Goyle when he did, and that Malfoy and Longbottom had gone back to the Ministry. The hardest part of this mission was about to get underway.

=ooo=

"Anything yet?" Monroe finally asked, after a minute or more of silence in the Room of Requirement.

"No," Harry muttered irritably. "Stop pestering me!"

"Harry, we've got to come up with _something_," Monroe persisted, ignoring Harry's irritation. "We don't want Malfoy knowing we've found a way around the Interdict, and we _certainly_ don't want him talking to these statues!"

"I know all that!" Harry snapped. "I did the same Memory Enhancing ritual you did! We memorized all the Interdicted spells in these books —" he gestured at the pile of old books on the table before them. "There ought to be _something_ we can do to get out of here!"

"There undoubtedly is," Monroe agreed. "But we're just not seeing it."

Dozens of powerful spells were swimming around in their brains now: how to perform Permanent Transfiguration and Conjuration spells, how to summon objects from anywhere, instantly, if you knew where it was. Spells that would make you immune to almost any magical disease or illness, or allow you to extend the lifetime of a normal wizard by three or four times. Spells to cure near- and farsightedness or hearing loss, and rituals that extend those senses well beyond the limit of human ability, though those rituals would shorten your life significantly — sacrifice for gain being a necessary part of any ritual.

"Maybe they can," Harry said, pointing to the four statues of the Founders. He addressed them once again. "O Founders, can you tell us of a way to leave this room and Hogwarts without disturbing any of the wards on the castle or grounds? This is something we very much need to do."

"We Founders created this Room as a place of final refuge here at Hogwarts," the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw spoke. "Wards do not penetrate this room, nor can any scyring or detection perceive it.

"But the rest of the castle is dedicated to the will of the current Headmaster; it is protected however he or she sees fit to do so. The current headmaster has added a new protection, one that perceives the mind of any sentient being within its range, and can describe and show where that being is on a representation of the castle's construction."

Harry was dumbfounded. "You mean like a _map_?" he asked, in shock.

"Yes," Gryffindor's statue answered. "Similar to the one you carry in your bag of holding."

Monroe raised an eyebrow. "How did you —"

"That tricky bastard," Harry said, though he was grinning now. "Neville added a Marauder's Map to the castle security! I wonder if he got Fred and George to do that for him — they were the only ones who know what that Map could do, other than Dumbledore himself."

"Does Neville know where we are now?" Monroe asked, nervously. It wasn't clear whether he was asking Harry or the Founders.

"Maybe not," it was Harry who answered. "If you're in the Room of Requirement you're not visible on the Marauder's Map, so if he asked his version of the Map it wouldn't show either of us. I suppose the question then is, would he wonder whether we're in the Room or not?"

"Would Malfoy?" Monroe asked.

"Crap," Harry muttered. "Of course he would, if Neville told him about the new security system. Malfoy knows the Room exists, and I'm pretty sure he knows about my Marauder's Map, much as I wished he didn't."

There was a long pause.

"So," Monroe finally spoke again. "We need a way to get out of this room and out of Hogwarts without alerting the new security system or passing through any part of the school outside this room. You know, that seems like a rather simple answer: Portkey."

"No," Harry immediately objected. "We would have to Portkey entirely out of Britain — remember , the Ministry can track unauthorized Portkey use anywhere in Britain now."

"I didn't know that," Monroe said. "When did that start?"

"Lord Malfoy got it pushed through the Ministry last month," Harry replied. "Draco wrote the law, of course. They saw it as a way to hurt me, to keep me from traveling back and forth between here and Europe, looking for Interdict-protected spell books."

"I thought you already had all the Interdict-protected spell books between Britain and the Far East," Monroe said, and Harry smiled.

"Most of them," he agreed. "Malfoy has most of the rest, I'd bet — he's been scrounging them up nearly as long as I have, mostly trying to figure out what I'm doing with them."

"Interesting," Monroe said, though he didn't sound particularly interested at the moment. "But this isn't helping us figure out a way out of here. So if we can't Portkey to anywhere in Britain, what about somewhere in Europe or Scandinavia, or even America?"

Harry pondered that for a moment. It _seemed_ like a good idea…but his newly-eidetic memory finally settled on a detail. "But we'll still have to get back into Britain, and we won't be able to use a Portkey — we'll have to come in using another mode of transportation. Brooms would take too long, and we'll be recognized if we arrange for Floo travel or Apparate through Iceland." Reykjavík was a well-known stopover between the Americas and Britain and the European and Scandinavian Wizarding communities; it was also extensively warded to protect against unauthorized wizard travel.

"It sounds like we're stuck here, then," Monroe threw up his hands. "Are Malfoy and his men still outside the room?"

"I'll check." Harry recast the powerful detection spell that let him see through the wall. "Hmm — no, there's only one person out there now, and he — no, _she_, is on the floor for some reason… what the hell?" Harry turned to Monroe. "Holy crap, it's Ginny!"

"Ginny?!" Monroe was as shocked as Harry. "How'd she get in here? And where are Malfoy and his men?"

Harry shook his head, still watching as Ginny picked herself off the floor and turned to the wall between them. She put her wand up to her throat and said in a magically-amplified voice, "_Harry_? _James_? _Are either of you in there_? _Can you hear me_?"

Harry put his own wand to his throat and silently cast _Sonorus_. "_We're here, Ginny_! _How'd you find us_?"

"_How about letting me in before Malfoy or one of his men come back and find me out here_?" she asked.

Harry gesture and Monroe opened the door to the Room, letting Ginny step inside. She was breathing heavily and rubbing her forehead. "Thanks," she said as she stepped past Monroe and into the room.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked her, concerned. "You look a bit pale."

"Okay," she nodded. "Just the effects of Polyjuice wearing off. I was pretending to be someone else so I could walk through the castle unnoticed."

"I saw," Harry told her. "I was watching you just a minute ago, you were in the middle of changing form."

"Oh?" Ginny looked at the wall, then back at Harry. "What, did you finally figure out how to add X-ray vision to your glasses, then?" At that moment she noticed the four statues of the Founders and fell silent.

"No, no, it's a spell from one of these books," Harry said excitedly, picking up one of the ancient leather-bound volumes. "See what we found?" He pointed to the statues she was staring at. "The Founders put some of their essence into these four statues, and they can talk to us!"

"Like Horcruxes," Ginny said quietly. "Are you sure it's a good idea, talking to them, Harry?"

"No, they _aren't_ Horcruxes," Harry averred. "They insisted they didn't use that ritual to create these statues."

"And you believed them?" Ginny said, giving Harry a skeptical look.

"Yes, I believed them!" Harry said, indignant. "They've helped us learn a lot of new spells since we've come here. Spells from before the Interdict of Merlin! Powerful spells, a lot more powerful than the most powerful spells we have today."

"So you've found a way round the Interdict, then," Ginny said, thoughtfully. "Congratulations, Harry! I know you've been looking for that for a long time."

"James actually found them," Harry said, pointing to Monroe. "I left him here when I came to help you out at TBC yesterday."

"Oh, so you were _here_, then?" Ginny asked. "The Aurors came round last night after dinner, asking questions about a letter Malfoy received that suggested you were visiting the Chamber of Secrets here at Hogwarts."

"Did they?" Harry frowned, hearing that. "I only told _you_ we were doing that, Ginny."

"I had lunch with Ron on Saturday," Ginny explained. "I may have mentioned it to him. The Auror interrogating me asked a lot of questions about Ron and the letter. I think they suspected him of writing it."

"Ron." Harry's voice was tight. "I knew he didn't like me, but I didn't think he'd stoop to _informing_ on me."

"It looks that way," Ginny said, apologetically. "I'm sorry, Harry. I've told him some things over the past few months, but I didn't know he was giving that information to the Ministry! I don't think Ron has any proof, though, beyond what I may have told him."

"Finding proof is what Malfoy does," Harry growled. "Whether he has to make it up or not. No wonder he's been after me so hard these past few months!"

"We should get out of here, you know," Ginny said, looking at the table filled with books and the four statues of the Founders. "But it's just so amazing that you've found a way to beat the Interdict! How did you do it?"

"She's right," Monroe put in. "We _should_ get out of here while we have the chance."

"We found out that the Founders statues can read spells from these books!" Harry said, proudly, ignoring Monroe.

"So you just show them a spell and they read it to you," Ginny surmised.

"If they can," Harry nodded. "Not all of them know every spell, but I think there were only one or two spells none of them knew."

"That's very interesting," Ginny said, looking at the books on the table. "But you couldn't have memorized them all in this short a time, could you?"

"We were lucky," Harry grinned. "One of the spells we found straightaway was a Memory-Enhancing Ritual. Monroe and I both performed it, it seemed like a quick way to memorize all the spells, and the best thing was, there was no sacrifice required for it."

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "There's almost always a sacrifice during a ritual, Harry. Dark rituals require it, and most other rituals involve a sacrifice of some sort, even a small one."

"The Slytherin statue read that one to us," Monroe remembered. "He didn't say anything about a sacrifice."

Ginny picked up a book from the table and began flipping through the pages. She held out the book toward Harry. "Is that the spell he read to you?" she asked, pointing to a spell at the bottom of the page.

Harry looked. "Right," he said. "That's the one."

Ginny flipped to the next page. "What's it say at the top there?"

Harry peered at the words for several seconds. They were gibberish. "I can't read it," he said, looking up at her with a puzzled expression.

Ginny shook her head sadly. "That's probably where the sacrifice is mentioned," she said, looking at Harry with concern. "You didn't have him read the entire ritual." She walked over to the statue of Salazar Slytherin. "Read this," she commanded, pointing to the text Harry couldn't read.

There was silence for several seconds, but the Slytherin statue finally began to read.

_Beware ye casters, who seek to improve thy recollection,  
><em>_A price to be paid for the skillfulness of thy reflections,  
><em>_Though ye shall remember all that ye have learned  
><em>_Yet your wisdom shall be halved, never to be returned._

Harry and Monroe looked at each other, aghast. "Shit," Harry breathed. "_That's_ why it's been so hard to figure out what to do!"

"Harry, I'm so sorry," Ginny said, looking as devastated as Harry felt.

"Never mind that now," Harry said, grimly. "We need to get out of here, _now_, before Malfoy returns and finds us here. Even if he can prove we were in the castle, we had permission to be here. And nobody can prove we were inside the Room of Requirement unless they come across the exact room we were in, and that's pretty unlikely."

"The question is, how do we do that?" Monroe asked. "If the staff's been alerted to our presence here they're not going to let us walk without trying to stop us."

"I think I have a way," Ginny said. "Harry, do you have your Cloak of Invisibility?"

"In my pouch," Harry nodded. "And the Marauder's Map. We can sneak out beneath it, is that what you're thinking?"

"Not really," Ginny disagreed. "The staff will be looking for something like that. I think we'll have to be rather bold, to do something unexpected, to get by them."

"Like what?" Both Harry and Monroe said at the same time.

"I've got some Polyjuice with me," Ginny replied, taking the bottle from her robes. "Have you noticed yet that my robes are for someone a bit larger than me?"

Harry's eyes looked Ginny up and down. "I guess they are," he said at last. "Whose clothes are they, anyway?"

"You'll see," Ginny smiled. "But first, get out your Cloak and the Map, and give the Map to me." Harry handed over the Map, waiting to hear what her plan was.

"You and Monroe get under the Cloak," Ginny ordered, and Harry threw the silvery material over himself and James. Ginny then held up the bottle of Polyjuice as if toasting them. "Cheers," she said, and downed the contents of the bottle, grimacing at the taste. "Eurgh, that's nasty," she muttered, then clutched her stomach as the potion began to take effect.

A minute later she stood transformed before them, a tall, stern-faced man with short, gray hair. Harry recognized him as an Auror, and wondered to himself how she'd gotten a bit of him for the Polyjuice. He'd have to ask her later, he decided, when they weren't in such a rush.

Ginny took out her wand and tapped the blank parchment in her hand, saying, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," in a deeper, more gruff-sounding voice than her own. Lines began forming across the parchment, showing the Marauder's Map, and the stern-faced Auror who Ginny had become studied it for several moments before folding it closed again.

"Ready?" Ginny asked the air. Harry and Monroe both nodded, then Harry realized they were invisible beneath the Cloak.

"Ready," he said aloud, and Ginny-the-male-Auror turned and opened the door, leading them out into the corridor.

=ooo=

Eileen Weatherly, the fifth year Hufflepuff prefect guarding the third floor area near the staircase leading down to the second floor, stifled a tired yawn. She hadn't gotten much sleep this night, between the alarm that had sounded earlier, just after midnight, and arrival of the team of Aurors not long ago that had prompted the Headmaster to put all the prefects and staff on alert.

But the idea that she might come across Harry Potter was exciting. She might not have a chance against him directly, but she could call the entire faculty down on him if need be — it was doubtful even Harry Potter himself could prevail against every teacher in the school. She only had to hope that the old caretaker, Filch, wouldn't be the first one to show up, or they were in deep dragon dung.

Bored, she conjured a bit of parchment and wrote a quick note on it with the tip of her wand. _Hey Jimmy_ (her fellow prefect, James Brandson) _see any sign of Potter yet? I bet I catch him before you do_! Smiling, she tapped the parchment with her wand, and it folded itself into a bird-shape, then flew off to where Brandson was patrolling. _That_ should work him up a bit, she thought. She and Jimmy were very good friends as well as prefects, but there was also a bit of Ravenclaw competitiveness in them — both had learned that the Sorting Hat had offered them Ravenclaw as well as Hufflepuff, but they had each preferred the friendliness of Helga Hufflepuff's House to the intellectual in-fighting of the House of Ravenclaw.

A sound reached her from the still dimly-lit corridor where she'd just sent the paper bird to Jimmy; it was past dawn by now but the sun still wasn't high enough in the sky to light the halls of the school adequately. "Who's there?" Eileen asked, raising her wand as _Lumos_-generated light shone from it.

"John Dawlish, Ministry Auror," a gruff voice replied, and a tall, gray-haired man stepped into the light of her wand. "And who are you, young lady?" he asked, stopping several feet from her, his wand at his side but ready to use, Weatherly noticed.

"I'm Eileen Weatherly," she said, a bit awed by the man's presence. "I—I thought the Aurors had left the school."

"The Head did," the man replied, his voice rough. "We're still trying to find Potter and his accomplice, James Monroe. Have you seen any sign of either of them?" he asked in an authoritative tone.

"Um, no," Eileen replied quickly. "I mean, no, _sir_," she added, remembering to address adults respectfully.

And then she saw something that made her flinch with horror. A small paper bird was fly toward her — Jimmy had replied to her not, but what a hell of a time for it to happen! The bird had almost reached the Auror when he turned suddenly, pointing his wand at the magical note. It stopped in mid-air, then fluttered into his hand. He tapped it with his wand; it unfolded and he began reading it.

Eileen wished she could crawl away and died. "My — er, my fellow prefect and I sometimes keep in touch that way, whenever we're separated," she said, uncomfortably, wishing she could vanish the parchment from the Auror's hand.

A small smile passed across the man's stern features. "It's alright, Miss, I'm not going to report you to the Headmaster. But stay ready and be prepared to react instantly if you see anything out of the ordinary." He took out a large piece of parchment that had been hidden within his robes. "I'm going outside the grounds so I can call in my notes to the Head, but I'll be back in a while. Stay vigilant," he finished, throwing her a salute.

Eileen, beaming, saluted in reply, and the tall Auror nodded and moved past her, down the staircase and out of sight in the dimness of the second floor. She continued beaming, hoping she could spend a few moments with him when he returned. Maybe she should look into being an Auror herself, she thought excitedly.

Outside the gates of Hogwarts, which had been unlocked by Hagrid before going inside the castle for breakfast, Harry, Monroe and Ginny quietly considered their next move. "Now what?" Harry asked, his and Monroe's heads peeking out from the Invisibility Cloak.

"Well, you can't go home, that's for sure," the form of John Dawlish said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Malfoy will have a warrant to search your home by now, I suspect."

"I wish I could talk to Hermione," Harry muttered. "She'd know what we should do."

"Don't be an idiot," Ginny-Dawlish laughed scornfully. "You don't want to get her mixed up in this fiasco. We're — _you're_ going to need all the help she can give you as Minister of Magic."

"Oh, yeah," Harry agreed, embarrassed he hadn't thought of that.

"What are we going to do about the effects of that ritual?" Monroe wanted to know.

"Dunno," Ginny shrugged. "The book said it wasn't reversible, didn't it?"

"Yeah," Harry moaned. "It did. But maybe there's another ritual we can use to negate the effects of the Memory Enhancing ritual."

"Maybe," Ginny agreed. "But it's liable to be one of those Interdict-protected spells in one of your books, Harry."

Harry rubbed his head in frustration. "I wish I'd never seen that damned spell!" he cried out.

"Quiet!" Monroe tried to hush him. "We don't need anyone hearing us and coming to investigate!"

"I have a place you can stay," Ginny offered. "It's a small apartment in South London — I rented it a few months ago so I could spend a night away from Dean from time to time. Nobody knows about it but me — and now, you."

"Good idea," Harry said, gratefully. "Thanks."

Ginny smiled warmly at Harry. "Well, let's see what you think of this one, then. What if I go to your apartment and collect those spell books of yours, then sneak back into Hogwarts and have those statues read them to me? I can look for a spell to remove that Memory-Enhancing ritual from you and Monroe, and then I can teach the important spells I learn to you two. It'll be slower without the memory ritual, but at least you'd have your intelligence back."

Harry looked at Monroe. "What do you think?"

"It sounds good to me," Monroe agreed. "If there's any way to get our original intelligence back, I'm all for it!"

"That's settled, then!" Ginny said, happily. "Now just let me get under the Cloak with you two —" there was a few seconds of fumbling about as the tall, male figure slipped between Harry and Monroe. The figure of John Dawlish tapped himself with his wand, saying "_Finite Bibotatem_!" then doubled over, falling to the ground on his knees and transforming into Ginny Weasley once again. Harry and Monroe helped her to her feet, and she slipped her arms into theirs.

"Ready?" she asked. "On three, then." Three seconds later they were gone.


	22. The Final Death

**Chapter Twenty-Two  
><strong>**The Final Death**

_Updated_ 10/19/2012

=ooo=

Ginny's South London flat barely qualified as an apartment, with nothing but a single room containing a fold-out divan, a tiny kitchen area, and an even tinier loo, but Ginny proudly showed them around as if she'd rented the Taj Mahal.

"You should be safe here for a while," she said to Harry. "There's no television and no phone, but you have your phones if you need something. I'd be careful about calling anyone but me, though; we don't want Malfoy to track you down here."

Harry nodded, though looking around the apartment left him quite underwhelmed. "We won't call anyone but you," he agreed. "I just hope you can find out something from those books to help us remove this Memory Enhancement spell and get us thinking better again."

Ginny nodded, looking worried. "I hope so too, Harry. Speaking of that, I'm going to have to know how to get into your apartment and find those books. And I hope I can get back into Hogwarts without being detected."

Harry told her the passwords to get through his and Hermione's entryway and living area and to the secret location of the Interdict-protected books. "I can let you have the Marauder's Map, too," Harry finished. "It should give you an advantage even if Neville has something like it as a security system."

Monroe was looking at her thoughtfully. "How are you going to remember all those spells if you don't use a memory charm of some type?"

Ginny shrugged. "I may just have to remember the most important ones and try to keep as many in my head as possible. How many have you memorized?" she asked, curiously.

"Probably a hundred or more," Monroe said. Harry nodded agreement. "It seems simple to remember them, but without the intelligence to know how to use them I wonder just how useful they are."

"We need to fix that," Ginny said, looking at Harry. "I hate to see you like this, Harry."

Harry smiled at her. "I do, too. I don't feel any different, but problem-solving does not seem as effortless as it did a day or so ago!"

"Yeah," Monroe agreed, looking unhappy.

"I'm on it, then," Ginny said, emphatically. "I'll be back as soon as I find something that'll help restore your intelligence." She walked to the door and opened it, then turned back to Harry and Monroe. "I'm going to lock the door. It's a double-lock door, so you'd need a key to get out, but I'll be back later today in any case, to check on you and bring more supplies. You should be good 'til then. Okay?"

Harry and Monroe both nodded. "Bye," Ginny said, shutting the door behind her.

"Now what?" Monroe asked, after nearly a minute of silence.

"I don't know," Harry shrugged. After a bit he added, "I could use a bite. What's in the fridge?" To answer his own question he went over and opened the small refrigerator. "Hm, lunch meat and cheese. Some bottles of butterbeer. I hope there's bread in the pantry."

Monroe sat down on the threadbare divan. "I'm beginning to feel like 'Dumb and Dumber.'"

"What's that?" Harry asked, grabbing a butterbeer from the fridge. He held up another one for Monroe, who nodded, then tossed it to him.

Monroe caught the bottle. "It's a movie, came out, um, 22 years ago, in 1994. Weird, how I remember the exact year, huh? It was about two stupid guys who do a lot of dumb things trying to make money without actually working."

Harry looked skeptical. "How does that movie remind you of our situation?"

"It doesn't, really," Monroe admitted. "I just feel dumber than I did before."

Harry rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Ginny will figure out a way for us to get our intelligence back," he retorted.

"Sure she will," Monroe said, but his tone was skeptical. "But remember, though, the book said the loss of intelligence was permanent."

"Maybe," Harry said dismissively. "But Ginny will find a way around it — she's really sharp. That's why I hired her to be my personal assistant."

"I hope you're right," Monroe sighed. He looked around the room, already bored. "I wonder what Malfoy is up to right now?"

=ooo=

At that moment Head Auror Draco Malfoy was addressing the Board of Governors of Hogwarts, convened in an emergency meeting only minutes earlier, to convince them that the doors of Hogwarts should be shut and off-limits to everyone save Ministry Aurors until such time as Harry Potter was captured or surrendered himself. He faced the gathered members in the Most Ancient Hall of the Wizengamot, now also known as Courtroom Ten in the Ministry of Magic.

"This is critical, I believe," Malfoy was saying, "because Potter may be, and in my opinion _is_, looking for a means of circumventing or abolishing the Interdict of Merlin." There was a sudden consternation among the members of the Board; Draco heard the words "Impossible!" and "He would not dare!" muttered among the governors.

"Head Auror, you cannot be serious," the Chairman of the Board stood, looking down at Malfoy in disbelief. "The consensus among the Ministry's own Unspeakables is that the Interdict is unbreakable! Lord Potter would have to be more powerful than Merlin himself to do that!"

"I agree," Malfoy replied immediately. "But Potter has always managed to find ways through impossible situations, even during his earliest days at Hogwarts."

"But never to bring harm to people," Neville Longbottom, Headmaster of Hogwarts, who was sitting alone, away from the Board members in order to watch their faces and expressions, spoke up. "Harry has always worked to bring the maximum benefit to the most people. He must realize that breaking the Interdict would cause many more problems than solutions."

Draco turned to look at him. "We would hope so, Headmaster. But I would think he would have been more honest with you about his intentions when he returned to Hogwarts yesterday, wouldn't you?"

Neville didn't respond. It was true; Harry had not been completely honest with him about why he had visited his old school, the school that Neville was now responsible for running.

Malfoy might be right, Neville considered — it might be better to close the school until they got Harry out of the Room of Requirement, if he really was in there in the first place. And it seemed he was — the Weasley security system did not lie.

But he certainly wasn't going to admit that out loud, not in front of Malvoy and the Board of Governors! That would set a dangerous precedent. No, he would have to oppose Malfoy's request as best he could, and give in only if the Board demanded his compliance. Or his termination, if it came to that.

Draco had turned back to the Board. "Whatever Potter's intentions," he continued. "If the Interdict is threatened, even indirectly, we have a solemn obligation to protect the citizens of Wizarding Britain."

"Agreed," the Chairman nodded. "But where is your evidence? How did you determine that Lord Potter was still at Hogwarts? Did you speak to him directly?"

Malfoy smiled. "The Headmaster had a security system installed that can identify every sentient being on the school grounds," he replied, with a gesture toward Neville. "It indicated that Harry Potter had entered school grounds this morning and has not yet left."

The governors were murmuring again at hearing of this new security measure. "So you know Lord Potter is at Hogwarts, then?" the Chairman surmised.

"He is very probably there," Neville answered, keeping any hint of reluctance or reticence from his reply. He would have to answer honestly, no matter how much it pained him to speak against Harry. "It could not identify his current location in the school, but there is one location where it is know the security system cannot penetrate — a room on the seventh floor known as the Room of Requirement."

More murmuring among the governors. "What is that?" one governor, a middle-aged matron wearing a garishly purple hat, asked. "I've never heard of that room."

Another governor spoke up, an old man with a white goatee. "I have, it's also called the Come-and-Go Room by the house-elves at the school. One of them told me it's a room that only appears when you have a real need for it."

"And Lord Potter knows about this — Room of Requirement?" the matron asked, looking at Malfoy.

"He does," Malfoy said. "I've been in the room myself."

"Then why don't you just go in the room and see if Lord Potter is in there?" the Chairman asked.

"Because you can't enter the Room of Requirement when it's already occupied unless you know what the current occupant's need is," Draco answered.

"That's ridiculous," the matron snorted derisively.

"That's the way it works," Neville said. The matron started to protest, but the Chairman held up a hand for her to remain silent, and she shut her mouth with an aggrieved look at him.

"For the moment granting you're correct, Headmaster," the Chairman said. "How do you propose getting Lord Potter out of that room without closing the school so Head Auror Malfoy can take him into custody?"

Neville shook his head unhappily. "I don't know, sir, unless… perhaps I can try to talk him out myself."

Malfoy laughed derisively. "If he wouldn't respond to _Aurors_, Headmaster, what makes you think _you_ could convince him to give himself up?"

"Because I can appeal to his sense of responsibility," Neville replied, seriously. "You'll have to agree, Head Auror, that you and he do not get along very well."

"So what?" Malfoy retorted, almost sneering. "Potter doesn't get along very well with many people in Wizarding Britain these days, seeing as how he spends most of his time among Muggles than with his own kind."

"Because he considers 'his own kind' to be humans, not just wizards," Neville replied. "Harry's done a hell of a lot more for more people than the lot of us in this room have, _combined_."

There were protests from several of the governors, but Neville ignored them. They would never understand that Harry took his humanity seriously, and that TBC was involved in more than high technology and technological progress. Quite a bit of TBC earnings went into supporting non-profits and charitable organizations around the world, organizations that worked to improve living, educational and medical conditions for people in countries that either couldn't or didn't care to help their own. The Board of Governors most likely saw Harry at best as a wizard who cared more for Muggles than he did for his own — at worst they might regard him as a failed Dark Lord. Merlin knew rumors like that had flown around Wizarding Britain for the past quarter-century. But whatever Harry was doing in the Room of Requirement, if he was in there, Neville knew he had no plans to bring about harm to anyway. That was something he couldn't quite say about Draco Malfoy.

The governors had begun talking amongst themselves in the silence that had fallen after Neville's last remark. Neville glanced down at Malfoy, standing in the middle of the floor. The Head had a small, satisfied smile on his face, as if he already knew what the governors would decide. Neville did as well, and he wasn't happy about it.

Before the governors could finish their deliberations, however, there was a knock at the heavy wooden door of the Hall of the Wizengamot. Draco gave the door a sharp look, then turned and walked toward it, yanking it open unceremoniously. A young Auror Neville recognized as a former student stood there, eyeing the Head Auror nervously, and spoke to him in a voice too soft to hear. It must be important, Neville realized, for someone to interrupt Malfoy's meeting with the Hogwarts Board of Governors.

Malfoy finally nodded, shutting the door and returning to stand before the governors once again. He cleared his throat loudly. The governors fell silently, looking at him inquiringly.

"Sorry to interrupt," Malfoy said. "But I've just gotten word that three Aurors have been found dead."

Neville started, astonished at the news. The governors were equally surprised. "_Dead_?!" the Chair man shouted. "Who are they? What's happened, then?"

"Aurors John Dawlish, Stuart Ackerly and David Beason were found dead in Dean and Ginny Thomas's apartment, approximately fifteen minutes ago," Malfoy replied, his voice calm and dispassionate. "Dawlish and Ackerly were the two senior Aurors dispatched to question the Thomases about a letter sent to me earlier at the Ministry, a letter that accused Harry Potter of working toward dispelling the Interdict of Merlin; Beason was Dawlish's junior partner. Dean Thomas is in custody, and has already been questioned under three drops of Veritaserum — he knows nothing about the deaths.

"The Ministry is currently searching for Ginny Thomas in order to question her concerning these killings. All three men were killed with the Killing Curse, so whoever is responsible will undoubtedly be sent to Azkaban. Under these circumstances," Malfoy concluded. "I believe you should rule in favor of closing the school so we can determine whether Harry Potter is in the Room of Requirement and what he is doing there."

"This is tragic news, Head Auror," the Chairman said, sadly and with real compassion for the fallen. "Please express our regret to the families of the three men on our behalf." Malfoy nodded solemnly.

The Chairman looked toward Neville. "Headmaster, do you have anything to say for or against the ruling Mr. Malfoy asks us for?"

Neville stood. He would have to choose his words here very carefully. "I, too, express my condolences for the three ment, and to the families of Aurors Ackerly and Beason." Dawlish had no family — he had never married. Ackerly, he recalled, had a wife and two children, and Beason was just married a few months ago. "But I do not see the connection between Harry Potter being at Hogwarts and the deaths of these Aurors at the Thomas home." He looked toward Malfoy. "Perhaps you can enlighten us on that point, Head Auror?"

"Ginny Thomas is wanted for questioning in the matter of the Aurors' deaths, as I said," Malfoy answered. "She is also Harry Potter's right-hand man — or girl, in this case. Someone _impersonating_ Dawlish was present at Ministry headquarters and at Hogwarts. I spoke with that person myself, not realizing it wasn't Dawlish, and left him and Goyle at the school to guard the Room of Requirement so that no one else could leave or enter it while we were hearing discussing what to do. _Whoever_ was impersonating Dawlish, we must move quickly if we want to catch him and bring him to justice."

"We concur," the Chairman said, looking around to the other governors, who unanimously nodded assent. He turned to Neville. "Headmaster, Hogwarts is hereby closed until further notice. You are directed to remove the students quickly and in an orderly fashion from the school, and to cooperate fully with the Ministry Auror Department in their attempts to enter the seventh-floor room known as the Room of Requirement."

Neville nodded curtly. "I understand, sir." They hadn't even let him finish speaking, he noted to himself. Malfoy had gotten his way, again. Well, that was almost a foregone conclusion, given the evidence presented. Neville would just have to hope that, whatever Harry was up to, he managed to cover his tracks well.

=ooo=

"This is pretty damned boring."

Monroe, sitting on the floor with his back to a corner of the room, looked over at Harry, who had just spoken. "No shit," he muttered. "I suppose we could go give ourselves up, that would be pretty exciting, wouldn't it?"

"That's not the type of excitement I'm looking for," Harry grumbled. He picked up his wPhone for the 40th time since Ginny left, nearly two hours ago. "I oughta call Ginny, see where she's at with the Founders and those books."

"Assuming she even made it to your place, got the books, then managed to sneak back into Hogwarts," Monroe pointed out.

"Ginny's smart, she'll make it," Harry said confidently. "And she's going to find a way to get rid of this memory ritual that's halving our intelligence."

"Sure," Monroe said once more, with no trace of confidence in his voice. "And I'll have some questions for her when she gets back, _if_ she gets back."

Harry sat up straight on the divan, staring at Monroe suspiciously. "What questions?"

"For one, how did she get a bit of the Auror she was impersonating? I hear they're pretty careful about letting anyone get ahold of anything that could be used in Polyjuice Potion. Hair, fingernails, even a bit of dandruff."

"I don't know why that's important," Harry shrugged. "She's resourceful."

"Apparently so," Monroe agreed, sardonically. "She's renting this Muggle apartment, which has to be costing her 400 pounds a month, even in this neighborhood. That's 80 Galleons a month at the official exchange rate. I don't know what you're paying her but that has to be quite of bit of her monthly salary."

"Not that it's any of your concern," Harry said, irritated, "but I pay her pretty damned well, even by Muggle standards."

"Glad to hear it," Monroe replied blandly. "But back to the Auror question — how do you think she got hold of that Auror's DNA?"

"Dawlish?" Harry actually thought about it for a few seconds. "He's a bachelor — maybe he was out drinking one night and she found an opportunity. Maybe she chatted him up one night and got a sample when he'd had a few. Or maybe she found a way to get into his home."

That didn't seem especially plausible to Monroe but he shrugged as if in acquiescence. "Fine, then — Dawlish might have slipped up, though I think sneaking into an Auror's home would be pretty hard to do. I'll feel better about it when she shows up with a way to fix our smarts problem, even though I don't think she's going to make it back."

"You underestimate her," Harry said firmly. "She'll be back before the end of the day."

=ooo=

"I can't believe this happened," Hermione said, looking around her living room.

"It's not that unusual, Minister," the Auror with her said, trying to be consoling. He wasn't happy to be here, even though the order had come directly from the Head himself. "Even wizard apartments get broken into occasionally."

"Not this one," Hermione muttered to herself. Following the issuance of an arrest warrant for Harry Potter (_another_ unbelievable occurrence, from her perspective) Malfoy had assigned an Auror to escort her home, in case Harry happened to be there when she arrived. Hermione half-suspected the Auror was to make sure she wasn't in on whatever was going on with Harry. Oh, he was going to get such a yelling-at when she was finally alone with him, guilty or not!

"Why don't you wait there, ma'am," the young Auror said, not wanting her too close to him in case someone was still in the apartment, or they found another trap. The doorway that led from the anteroom to their living room had been hit with a curse neither she nor the Auror had ever seen before; it had left a spherical hole in the wall where the doorway had been. The curse had still lingered, a knick-knack from the anteroom fizzled and burst into flame when she tossed it across the threshold. It had taken her and the Auror several minutes to find a counter-curse that neutralized it.

The rest of the apartment was in shambles. Not only were items of value — statues, some Muggle electronics that worked in magical areas, and a small strongbox with perhaps a hundred Galleons in it, a rainy-day fund — missing from the living room, things that weren't taken were blasted apart or thrown against the walls.

She started to walk into the dining room anyway, to check it as well, but the Auror put out a hand automatically, to stop her. "Er — sorry, Minister," he said apologetically. "But we should check for more traps." Annoyed, Hermione nevertheless nodded agreement, reminding herself to let her people do their job instead of trying to do it all herself.

But there were no other traps in the apartment, though all of the rooms were similarly vandalized. Everything of value in the apartment had been removed, as far as she could tell.

"You should consider setting up a security program with the Auror Department, ma'am," the Auror suggested. "In fact, I'm surprised the Head hasn't suggested it to you already."

"He has," Hermione said. "We were considering it when this happened." What she _didn't_ say, of course, was that Malfoy would _love_ to have his department monitoring this apartment. But Harry already had security in place here that no one, and that meant _no one_, should have been able to break through short of Harry himself, or maybe Lord Voldemort or Albus Dumbledore, in their day.

"Will you be alright here tonight, ma'am?" the Auror asked, solicitously. "We could arrange for a guard for you at Ministry HQ, if you like."

_That might not be a bad idea_, Hermione thought. With Harry gone she couldn't guarantee her own safety here, unless —

"No, that won't be necessary," Hermione replied. "Whoever did this cleaned the place out — I doubt they have any reason to come back now. I can take care of the usual precautions."

"Very good, Minister," the Auror said, with a small bow, and left to return to the Ministry.

Hermione took extra time erecting the protection spells for the apartment, making sure the entryway was well-protected. She wouldn't be able to get Dean's help reconstructing the doorway until after the Ministry released him, and there was no telling how long Malfoy would hold him, even if it was obvious he knew nothing about the death of Dawlish, Ackerly or Beason.

What was disconcerting about those deaths, pondered Hermione, was that they had all occurred at the Thomas' apartment, and that Malfoy was already looking for Ginny Thomas for questioning in the matter. It was unbelievable that _Ginny_ was somehow involved. But then, today was turning out to be a rather unbelievable day, all things considered.

It had taken a couple of hours for the Auror team to go through her apartment before she was allowed back in, and though it wasn't very late, she'd had a hectic day, with the three Auror deaths this morning, Hogwarts being closed and all its students dismissed back to their families for the foreseeable future, and her having to deal with Malfoy all day long as he tried to subtly interrogate her on Harry's whereabouts. She needed rest, and the best place for that, if not at Ministry HQ itself, was in Harry's Bat Cave.

Or the Vault, as he also called it. Fortunately, it was separate from their apartment, and protected by several layers of very unobvious passwords. There was an access point from the apartment, too, also very unobvious. Hermione passed down the hallway from the living room to the master bedroom, and through that room to the dressing area and bathroom.

Their bathroom was spacious, with warmed tile flooring that was as soft as carpet, twin showers and a full bath, and dual vanities, so they could both get ready for work at the same time, if need be. Hermione ignored all this and stepped in front of the doors leading to the linen closet.

"Mecca lecca hi, mecca hiney ho," she said, rolling her eyes at the password phrase Harry had chosen, and rocks began to appear on the wall, arranging themselves into a fireplace. She reached up and took a pinch of Floo powder from a small flower pot on the mantle, tossing it into the empty fireplace. Green flames immediately shot up, filling the room with a green glow, and Hermione stepped into the flames saying, "The Vault." A moment later she stepped into a small room with an elevator door and a single button.

The fireplace behind her folded itself up and disappeared back into the wall. Harry had removed the access to the Vault from his office and placed it in their apartment after it looked like Malfoy was working toward obtaining a search warrant for his place of business, and that had indeed happened not long ago.

The elevator wasn't really an elevator, but a doorway to a long, dimly-lit corridor that came to an apparent dead end. Harry had also added a voice-coded password for her, and she cleared her throat and quietly sang the password,

_Don't be frightened, don't be sad,  
><em>_We'll only hurt you if you're bad!_

They were the opening lines of her Sunshine Regiment song. A doorway opened, showing a spiral metal staircase: the entrance to the Vault. At the top of the staircase was a bland door with a small sign on it, saying "What's the magic word?"

Hermione still hated the "magic word" she had to speak for this part. True, it wasn't something most people, even though who knew Harry well, would think of. She took a deep breath and began,

"Klaatu barada n— necktie… neckturn…nickel…  
>It's an 'N' word, it's definitely an 'N' word.<br>Klaatu barada N— (cough, cough)"

The door opened slowly, rewarding her effort at remembering that ridiculous password, and Hermione stepped inside. And gasped in horror.

Someone had gotten into the Bat Cave, too!

What was worse, Hermione saw, was that they had looted it as well. The bookcases, Harry special library of ancient and unique books, were now barren of any tome or scroll. Dazed with disbelief, Hermione walked slowly through one of the aisles between the now-empty cases, shaking her head in utter astonishment, to the room beyond.

There, she found the display cases Harry had set up blasted into pieces. Most notable was the case that had held the large, jagged rock—it was now strewn in pieces across the floor. So were the silver knick-knacks that had been in another case.

This was not only unbelievable, it was impossible. _No one_ could have broken into Harry's vault without knowing his passwords. And Harry couldn't be persuaded to give up his passwords by any means Hermione knew; not even torture, not even _Veritaserum_, could have forced him to reveal the secrets of the Bat Cave!

Hermione ran across the room, heedless of the broken glass and rock on the floor, to the far wall where four wooden drawers hung open. She looked quickly through them — all four were empty. The diary, the second Horcrux that Tom Riddle had created, was gone!

Hermione moaned. She could imagine a reason why this might have been done, and by whom, and she could barely stand the thought. It had to be Harry. He had decided to leave her.

It was the only thing she could come up with. No one could get into the Vault but her and him — not even Monroe had access to their apartment, much less the password-protected door that opened to the spiral staircase. So Harry had to have broken into their apartment, ransacked it, then cleared out his books, smashed his display trophies, and took the items in the drawers, including Riddle's diary.

But why would he do that _now_?

Hermione had no idea, but she had to find out. She pulled out her phone and dialed the Priority Access number for Harry's phone. It would reach Harry no matter where he was, even inside Mary's Room. She had to know what she'd done wrong, what she could do to get him to change his mind!

But the phone rang and rang, to no answer. Harry had promised he would always answer when this number was dialed, without fail. If he wasn't answering it now…

She shook her head, suddenly dizzy. The phone, still ringing, dropped from her fingers as Hermione slumped to her knees, then fell onto her side, unable to move. The room was cool but she was suddenly even colder, like her blood was —

She gasped. It was _exactly_ like what a Blood-Freezing Charm would feel like! And that meant — it could _only_ mean something to _one_ person…

"Malfoy," she whispered, shivering with cold that felt like it was seeping into her very bones. "Y-you little _bastard_…"

=ooo=

Harry opened his eyes. He thought he'd only closed them a moment ago, but he felt stiff and uncomfortable, so he'd probably fallen asleep. He glanced over to the corner, where Monroe was lying on his side, snoring softly. Harry shifted to one side so he could pull his phone from his pocket to check the time.

It was 8:25 p.m. Harry shook his head. It had been the middle of the morning when Ginny dropped them off here! How could they have slept for almost 12 hours?

"Monroe," Harry said, his voice rough and hoarse. Monroe didn't answer. "Monroe!" Harry said louder, and Monroe started, then looked up at him.

"What? What?" Monroe asked, then said, "Owww," as his stiffened joints protested their movements. "What time is it?"

"Almost eight-thirty," Harry muttered. "We slept all day."

Monroe sat up, groaning. "I don't think I've slept twelve hours in daytime since — since I don't know when. Is Ginny back?"

"No," Harry said. "At least I don't think so. Ginny!" he called out, but there was no response.

"Do you think she got into Hogwarts?" Monroe asked, running a hand through his hair to try and straighten it.

"She's probably there now," Harry theorized. "Trying to figure out what to do about our predicament."

"You hope."

Harry frowned. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"I don't know." Monroe rubbed his hand across his face. "I just think it's going to be harder for her to get in than you think."

"Well I think she's going to do just _fine_," Harry snapped. "She's pretty smart."

"Yeah, you've told me."

"And you don't believe me, but just wait and see," Harry said, confidently.

_Mostly_ confidently, he added to himself. Ginny was resourceful, but if Malfoy and the Ministry believed he was at Hogwarts, in the Room of Requirement, they weren't going to give up just because they couldn't open the door.

But then, Neville's security system would have told them that he and Monroe had left! Even though they were under his Invisibility Cloak, the Marauder's Map knew they were there — he had to assume the security system, based on the Map, did so as well.

Harry took out his phone and stared at it. Ginny had told them not to call anyone, but… Hermione would be wondering where he was. And she needed to know he was safe, especially if Malfoy had told her his version about what had gone on this morning. That wasn't going to be easy to get around; he couldn't very well say he'd been wandering around Hogwarts, lost. Even if anyone believed that the security system would make a liar out of him, if it could track his movements. His one hope was the fact that the Marauder's Map couldn't tell you where anyone had _been_, it could only show you where they were _right then_. If the best it could do was say when you entered and left Hogwarts, they might have a chance of getting past this.

Assuming Monroe could beat three drops of Veritaserum…

Monroe saw Harry holding his wPhone. "What's the phone for?" he asked.

"Calling people," Harry answered, being deliberately obtuse. "I'm thinking about calling Hermione."

"Is that a good idea?" Monroe wondered. "What if Malfoy asks if she's talked to you? She'd have to lie, and that might get her in trouble."

"Malfoy wouldn't dare try to force her to take Veritaserum," Harry said flatly. "He wouldn't _dare_."

"There's no telling what he'd dare to get you," Monroe reminded him. "He really wants a piece of your ass these days."

Harry thought about it a minute. "I can send her a text," he said at last. "She can erase it afterwards. Malfoy will never know, even if he checks her phone."

**Hi Love, I'm okay. Sorry I can't come home,  
><strong>**there's a misunderstanding about where I  
><strong>**was ****today. Will be home soon as I can. ****Kisses **

Harry typed in the message then hit SEND. He watched as the progress line moved toward complete, but stopped just short of transmitting the message. It stayed that way more than a minute, then an owl fluttered unsteadily onto the screen and dropped dead, signaling a transmit failure. He glanced in the upper corner of the phone where the word WARDED was flashing.

"I'm not getting through," Harry said, annoyed.

Monroe pulled out his phone. "Neither am I," he said. "But I thought the Weasleys made these phones work through magical wards."

"Yeah, but there are certain protection spells even these phones can't get through," Harry pointed out. "What's getting me is, they would have to be cast specifically by one of the Weasleys for just these phones — they're the only ones other than me who knows about them."

Monroe frowned. "Do you think Ginny can cast that protection spell?"

"I don't know. Probably." Harry looked worried. "But I can't believe she wouldn't trust us. There must be another reason why she did it, _if_ she did it."

"Why don't we try the phones outside?" Monroe suggested. "Maybe she just has the spell on this apartment."

Harry stood and walked over to the door. It was double-locked, like Ginny had said, but there were ways around that. He took out his wand and pointed it at the doorknob. "_Alohomora_," he said. Nothing happened. He tried another unlocking spell, "_Effringo_!" with similar results. One of the pre-Interdict spells came to mind. "_Estachus_!" But even this powerful spell did nothing against the door.

Monroe took out his wand and tried to open the door, ineffectually, then turned the wand on the walls and tried to blast a hole in them, but the walls absorbed the blasting hexes without a crack. "No use," he finally said. "She's trapped us in here."

"That doesn't make any sense," Harry muttered. "She doesn't have any reason to do that."

"Or you can't see it," Monroe added, plaintively.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Harry demanded.

"I mean that you can't see that a lot of things about Ginny haven't been adding up lately," Monroe snapped.

"Give me an example," Harry fired right back, now clearly irritated.

"The Auror she pretended to be, for one," Monroe said. "She didn't just use that disguise to get into Hogwarts, she came from Auror _headquarters_, with Malfoy and other Aurors. How'd she work _that_, do you think?"

"She was trying to figure out where we were!" Harry said, defending her.

"She _knew_ where we were, we _told_ her we were going to Hogwarts!" Monroe shouted. "Did you tell your _wife_ we were going there?!"

"Of course not!"

"Why not?"

"Because she's the bloody Minister of Magic!" Harry yelled.

"So you trust Ginny more than you trust your wife?"

Harry opened his mouth to shout again, then stopped and took a deep breath before replying. "No, because we were going there to find out if the statue in the Chamber was a Horcrux and I didn't want Malfoy to know if it got back to him we were there and he questioned her about it!"

"That's a pretty convenient rationalization, Harry."

Harry barked a laugh. "Hell, James, you're not going to be happy until I confess my undying love for Ginny, are you?"

It was Monroe's turn to laugh. "Oh I doubt you're in love with her, Harry. Sometimes I wonder if you're in love with anyone, Hermione included."

"Watch it." Harry was no longer smiling. His wand arm looked taut, like it was ready to point at Monroe. "You don't get to say shit like that to me. You don't know anything about me and Hermione. Or me and Ginny, for that matter. They're both important to me, for different reasons."

"Feel like enlightening me?" Monroe challenged.

Harry stared at him silently for some time, considering that. "Hermione and I have practically been boyfriend and girlfriend since our first year at Hogwarts. Everyone in school thought so."

"Yeah," Monroe sneered. "You were so close that you bonded her as your _servant_ during her trial at the Ministry, didn't you?"

This time the wand did come up. "You don't know shit about that."

"I know what I heard," Monroe said. "I remember it all now, too."

"All you heard were rumors," Harry said, dismissively. "We didn't tell anyone at school what happened, and neither McGonagall nor Dumbledore would have said anything about it to anyone there."

"Not everyone in the Wizengamot was that close-lipped about it," Monroe pointed out. "Some of them told their kids or friends, and it got around the school. By the end-of-year Feast practically everyone at school knew about it. I'm only surprised that no one ever said anything about it to you or Hermione!"

Harry held back the grimace that threatened to spread across his face. People _had_ mentioned it, but he'd dismissed it as rumors then, too, mostly to keep quiet the deal he'd made with Lord Malfoy to buy Hermione's freedom from Azkaban. He didn't want people looking at his friend like she was a criminal simply because she'd been False-Memory Charmed into believing she'd tried to murder Draco Malfoy, and a lot of people in the Wizengamot had swallowed that crap because she wasn't a pure-blood.

"It doesn't matter now," he said, lowering his wand. "She's not my servant, she's my wife. And Ginny's a good friend who had a very rough first year at Hogwarts."

"I know the story," Monroe nodded. "She's the reason why the Chamber of Secrets was discovered in the first place. Is that why you told her we were going to Hogwarts?"

Harry shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe you're right about me and her, in a way, but there's nothing between us except a very old and deep friendship. My friends are important to me, James. Hell, look at how much I've done for you in the past few months, and I didn't even _like_ you when you came to see me back in August!"

Monroe laughed again. "I guess you didn't, did you?" He sobered quickly. "But that doesn't change the fact that we seem to be trapped in this apartment with no way to communicate with anyone. And this is Ginny's apartment. Even if it's not her doing, someone has to be responsible. We need to figure out what's going on."

Harry started to answer but suddenly found he couldn't move. What the hell was James doing? He wondered briefly, then saw that Monroe was in the same predicament as him. They both stood there, frozen under what felt like the Full Body-Bind Curse, when the front door opened.

"Hello," Ginny said as she stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She stepped nonchalantly between them, moving to the middle of the room before turning to face them. "I trust the two of you haven't been too bored during your time here?"

Neither of them answered her, of course; the Body-Bind prevented any speech or even movement beyond their eyes. "Ah," she smiled. "Of course you're a bit indisposed to reply, aren't you? Let's see if we can rectify that, shall we?"

She waved her hand at each of them, not even bothering with a wand. Harry tried to move again but only his head worked. "What's going on, Ginny?!" he snapped at her. From the corner of his eye Harry saw that Monroe's head had turned toward her as well.

"Don't worry, I plan to explain what's going on," she said. Behind her, the divan shifted so it was directly behind her, and she sat down in the middle of it, making herself comfortable.

"Are you going to release us?" Monroe asked, his voice tight.

"Yes," she said, smiling wickedly, "but first —" She made _come here_ gestures at them with both hands, and each man's wand floated out of their hands and over to her. She waved one hand again and the Body-Binds released, causing both Harry and Monroe to stagger. "Now we can talk," she said. "Questions?"

Harry folded his arms and stared at her, resisting the urge to pick her off the couch and shake her, old friend or not. "Let's start with, _what the hell are you doing_?"

Ginny shook her head, looking almost sad. "Haven't figured it out yet, Harry? Even after everything Mr. Monroe here pointed out to you?"

"Did you get back in the Room of Requirement?" Harry asked, ignoring her question.

"No," Ginny shook her head. "I didn't have to."

"Of course you do," Harry insisted. "You were going to get the Founders to read my Interdict-protected spellbooks to you."

"No," Ginny said again. "I already know how to read the spells. I just needed your books."

There was silence for a moment. Then Monroe said, "Aw, shit."

"What?" Harry was utterly perplexed. "Don't be silly, Ginny — you can't read those books. Nobody can, except…" He trailed off, trying to figure out what she meant.

One of Ginny's eyes suddenly twitched. She looked into Harry's eyes and gave him a thin, humorless smile. Everything suddenly fell into place for Harry.

"Aw, shit," he groaned. _There ain't no justice_! "What the _fuck _are _you_ doing here!?"

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Really, Mr. Potter? After all these years I thought you might have something a bit more intelligent to say to me than that, now that we've met once again."

Harry just shook his head; this should have been over with _years_ ago.

"You should be dead," Monroe said. "Harry got rid of all your Horcruxes."

"Obviously not," Ginny said matter-of-factly. "Although I let him and that crazy old wizard think so."

"Which one did he miss?" Monroe asked, buying time. Though Harry appeared to be shocked speechless, Monroe hoped he was coming up with a plan, some way to extricate themselves from this predicament. Did he have a backup wand, or an emergency Portkey, or something else in the pouch on his belt? Ginny had confiscated their wands, but not the pouch, and Monroe was desperately hoping she had forgotten it, as it was out of her line of sight on his hip near his back pocket.

"I'm waiting for Harry to figure that one out," Ginny replied.

"Dumbledore and I figured you split your soul three ways," Harry said, slowly. "Three is a magically powerful number. The diary, the ring, and the man. Three."

"Certainly," Ginny shrugged. "If you believe that stuff about magically powerful numbers. I don't, especially, no matter what the Arithmancy texts say. But before we go on —" she waved Monroe's wand and a chair appeared behind them. "Have a seat, I have a story to tell you before our business here is concluded."

Harry and Monroe both looked at the chairs. They could be booby-trapped. But Ginny had their wands, and she appeared ready to talk, so it seemed unlikely they'd be cursed just by sitting down. They both sat down.

"This is your own fault, you know," Ginny said, speaking to Harry. "Messing around with the Interdict, trying to figure out where magic comes from — if you'd just tried to stay on course with the Magical Singularity none of this would have happened."

"They're all interrelated," Monroe said.

That earned a glare from Harry. "Don't say anything else about any of that," he warned. "Our 'friend' here doesn't need any help."

"Oh, it's too late for that," Ginny smiled thinly again. "I know more about them than you think _you_ do."

"So why tell us this now?" Harry growled. "Or are you going to kill us after you've revealed your master plan?"

"No, I still need you around to make things work. There are some loose ends that need clearing up."

"Such as?" Monroe asked.

"Dawlish, for one thing," Ginny answered. "The Ministry found his and two other bodies in the Thomas apartment this morning, right around the time you were settling in here. Someone will need to be blamed for their deaths."

"And you're going to use Harry or me for that?" Monroe surmised.

But Ginny shook her head. "No, I'm going down for that. Or at least, this body will. I have other plans for you and Harry."

She smiled coldly. "Well, for Harry, at least." For you, Mr. Monroe, I'm afraid your usefulness here has come to an end." She pointed Harry's wand at him. "Goodbye, James Harrison Monroe. You were an interesting fellow until you lost half your intelligence."

Harry suddenly lunged from his chair toward her, grabbing for the wand in her hand, but with a flick of Monroe's wand he was pushed back until he fell back against the chair, frozen by another Full Body-Bind.

"Sloppy, Mr. Potter," Ginny said. "I see losing half your intelligence has made you predictable as well. I saw that coming before you even thought of it."

Monroe hadn't moved, but he was shaking his head as if trying to clear it. "Oh," he said, his eyes widening as he stared at the tip of Harry's wand. "Oh, wow."

"Oh, wow, indeed," Ginny said, mockingly. "Goodbye, Monroe. _Avada Kedavra_!"

James Monroe fell over, dead.

=ooo=

**A/N: Thoughts on this latest state of affairs?**


	23. Interview with the Dark Lord

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

**Interview with the Dark Lord  
><strong>_Updated_ 12/7/2012

=ooo=

Harry watched in silent horror as his friend James Monroe dropped lifelessly to the floor of the apartment. He involuntarily strained against the Body-Bind spell that held him, but could not break it wandlessly. And it was good that he could not do so — he did _not_ want to show his horror, his grief, to the person that had just murdered his friend.

Harry's eyes locked on Ginny Thomas, who still held the pose she had taken when cursing James to death. Her eyes were on him now, and those eyes, Harry could see, felt nothing for what she had just done.

But it _wasn't_ Ginny Thomas who had killed Monroe, Harry knew; it was someone much more dangerous, more cunning and ruthless, than anyone Harry had ever known in his 36 years of life. It was Voldemort.

Voldemort was back.

Harry had once accused James Monroe of being Voldemort, but he hadn't really believed it. He believed Voldemort had been dead for almost 20 years, killed in 1998 when Harry and Dumbledore destroyed the second Horcrux he'd created and Harry defeated him in combat. He should not be alive now. How, and why, he had surfaced again was something Harry would have to discover.

Before he killed him again.

"You didn't have to do that," an icy cold voice crackled from Harry's throat. "You're back for me, not him."

"Mostly correct, Mr. Potter," Ginny's voice agreed. "I've been waiting a long time for my revenge." Her arm dropped to her side, and she turned to look at Harry. Her eyes were as cold and soulless as Voldemort's had been, the last time Harry gazed into them. "But you should not presume to dictate the terms of my revenge to me. Mr. Monroe's death, while collateral in one sense, is also a necessary part of my plan."

"So now what?" Harry asked, still in the ice-cold tone he hadn't used in many years, not since he'd learned to control the dark aspect of his character. Would he have a chance to learn the Dark Lord's plan? "Do you plan to kill me next?"

An amused smirk twisted Ginny's lips. "Of course not. After all the years I've waited for this, do you suppose I'd simply kill you without sufficient suffering on your part in repayment of the debt you owe me?"

"I'm not sure what to think," Harry answered honestly. "It's always been hard to read you, Tom." That was true enough, and perhaps Harry shouldn't have admitted it, but he hoped using Voldemort's real name would distract the man enough to give Harry a slight edge.

But the Dark wizard seemed to ignore the jab. "I've been careful not to give any indication I was alive," Ginny's voice said, quietly. "It was only because of you and Monroe stumbling into a way to beat the Interdict that caused me to show myself today. Otherwise, things might have continued the way they were for years while I consolidated my power in the Wizengamot and Ministry, until I had circumstances arranged just the way I needed them to be for my return."

"What circumstances?" Harry asked, wondering if Voldemort was in a bragging mood. It was unlikely — one of his rules was _Don't brag_, but if Harry had already disrupted his original plan he might be willing to disrupt things even more.

Ginny's arm waved dismissively. "We'll get to that in a bit."

"Very well," Harry said, after a moment. "Then let's go back to my original comment. You didn't have to kill James."

"He'd served his purpose," the Dark Lord said, stepping next to Monroe's body and reaching down to feel for a pulse. He looked up, seeing Harry watching him, and added. "You can never be too cautious these days, even with the Killing Curse. There are more ways to avoid it than you might think. Even if it works, the person might come back anyway."

"I suppose _you'd_ know that," Harry muttered darkly. "Do you think James had a Horcrux?"

"No," James's murderer replied. "He was too 'good' for that. But I'm sure you realize now, Mr. Potter, that you don't need to do murder to create a Horcrux."

The statues of the Founders in the Room of Requirement were proof of that, Harry knew. But none of the spells they had passed to Harry would let him move his memories, his personality, into an inanimate object, to imbue it with his…soul…if you wanted to call it that. But —

"I'm not interested in that type of immortality," Harry said, with a slow shake of his head, the only motion his body could still muster.

"Neither was I," Voldemort agreed, with a thin smile. "But murder _does_ make for the best Horcruxes, even if the act is technically unnecessary."

"Yes, Horcruxes," Harry said. "Did I miss one of them, then?"

Ginny's possessor was looking calculatingly around the room. "It would seem so," her voice replied in a distracted tone. She suddenly bent down, picking up Monroe's body in a fireman's carry and moving toward the front door. She set Monroe down on his feet, then allowed him to fall forward to the floor with a _thump._

"How did I miss it?" Harry asked, watching Voldemort's actions with growing concern. _What was he doing with James's body_?

"Come now, Mr. Potter," the Dark Lord said, studying the position of Monroe's body on the floor. "You're the one with the perfect memory, even if you're only half as smart now as you were before. You already have enough information to figure out where at least one of my other Horcruxes is."

Harry was silent for several seconds, remembering everything he and Voldemort had said to one another over the years. Remembering wasn't the problem, of course; he could remember everything he'd ever said, ever read, even ever glanced at casually as he walked down the street. What was important now was the meaning hidden in some of those words, and that was going to be more difficult now that his intelligence was halved.

To hide the fact that he was coming up with nothing, he instead asked, "What are you doing with Monroe's body?"

"Setting the stage a bit," Ginny's voice answered. One of her arms waved at him. Harry, still unable to move his body, felt himself rise in the air a short distance and float over to the front door.

Stepping to the middle of the room, Voldemort took out Harry and Ginny's wands. "Now that you've killed Monroe —"

"Why would _I_ have killed Monroe?" Harry interrupted. "He and I have been good friends for months now."

Voldemort laughed. It was a strange, unnatural sound coming from Ginny's mouth. "You became unhinged when you learned that Monroe found a way to beat the Interdict of Merlin."

Harry laughed as well, in derision. "Why would I do that? I've been trying to beat the Interdict before I ever heard of James Monroe!"

"Exactly," Voldemort agreed. "_You_ wanted to be the one to defeat Merlin's magic-limiting spell, not him. After Ginny arrived, you saw an opportunity to kill Monroe and blame her for his death."

"That's preposterous," Harry said, flatly. "Ginny's been with me a long time —"

"And you were upset when she told you she was in love with Monroe," Voldemort spoke over him, after Monroe left to get food for the three of you. "That's why you killed him the moment he stepped through the door."

Voldemort smiled at the look of shock and confusion on Harry's face. "Don't worry, Harry, you will believe everything I'm telling you has transpired, and you will tell the Aurors willingly. Now, let's what kind of duel you and Ginny might have had."

Voldemort began an elaborate back-and-forth duel across the room, throwing Blasting Curses, Stunners, Disarming Charms, somehow casting Shields simultaneously so that the curses deflected off them, slamming into the walls and floors, breaking and shattering them.

When Voldemort finished the room was in a shambles; walls blasted down to plaster, the divan ripped apart, the carpet smoking in several places. Harry could hear screaming in some other part of the building, probably in response to the explosions from the mock-duel Voldemort had staged.

"There," Ginny's voice said, dropping a wand next to Monroe's outstretched hand. "That should do nicely. Now you and I can go somewhere and talk."

Voldemort picked a torn sofa pillow off the floor and touched it with Harry's wand. "_Portus_," he said, then pressed it against Harry's arm. A moment later he felt the normal hook-behind-the-navel sensation of Portkey travel, and they were in the anteroom of his and Hermione's apartment.

Voldemort waved a hand at Harry, floating him down the corridor to the living room of the apartment. Harry's eyes were darting back and forth in consternation — his home was a shambles, as if there'd been some kind of fight here as well.

Voldemort floated him in front of a chair that wasn't blasted apart, then momentarily released the Body-Bind. Harry flopped into the chair, but before he could jump to his feet he was Bound again, though his head still had movement. Voldemort conjured a chair and sat down across from Harry, regarding him impassively. "Any questions, Potter?" he asked, smiling maliciously.

"First, a comment," Harry replied. "I see you're still afraid of me, Tom."

Ginny's face colored a bit but didn't lose the smile. "You shouldn't mistake a prudent caution for fear, Mr. Potter. I don't need you leaping at me at odd moments due to your loss of cognitive ability, leading you to believe you have any kind of chance of escaping. Anything else before I explain your situation to you?"

Harry sighed. "How about the obvious question, then? Why aren't you dead? And don't give me the obvious answer, please. I'll deduct Potter points for that."

Voldemort chuckled. "I see you remember my old motivational system for getting students to think for themselves."

"Yeah, I remember pretty much everything," Harry retorted. "Especially now. But I'm still waiting for you to answer."

Ginny's body leaned back and folded her arms across her chest, a very un-Ginny-like gesture. "I'm afraid my answer must be the obvious one, however — you did not find all of my Horcruxes."

"That seems unlikely," Harry disagreed. "Once I showed your diary to Dumbledore and we realized what it was, Dumbledore deduced that you would not be content to create a single Horcrux. The two most powerful magical numbers are three and seven. Splitting your soul into seven would make it dangerously unstable, so we concluded that you split it into three."

Voldemort was silent for some time, staring at Harry. "Did you ever question old Slughorn about the conversation I had with him about Horcruxes?"

"Dumbledore did," Harry answered. "He was not very forthcoming about it — he told the Headmaster he refused to tell you anything about them."

Voldemort nodded. "He was loathe to discuss it at first, Dark as it was, but the old fool couldn't help but boast of his deep knowledge on the subject, especially to an up-and-coming young wizard such as I was at the time. I'm sure he expected me to be quite an asset to him in his later years, after retirement, when he believed I'd be Minister of Magic."

"Both your diary and the Gaunt ring were destroyed," Harry pointed out. "The diary in my sixth year and the ring the year after, and we finally defeated you once and for all!"

"Or so you thought," Voldemort added, softly.

"So there _are_ more Horcruxes," Harry said, voicing his worst fear.

"_At least_ one more," the entity possessing Ginny agreed. "Would you like me to tell you where it's at?"

Harry laughed, a raw, scornful sound. "No, I suppose I should work that out for myself, Tom." It was impossible to think of the person in Ginny's body as her anymore.

"I have all but told you where it is already, you know," Tom pointed out with a sardonic smile. "I was going to say that you probably don't remember, but that would be incorrect now, wouldn't it? The problem you have now is deducing which of the many things we talked about refers to it, and where you might find it today."

"Assuming I'm going to be alive to do so," Harry muttered.

There was irritation in Voldemort's response. "Have I not already said I have no plans to kill you, Mr. Potter? My designs for you, as hastily as they have been conceived, require that you, Mrs. Thomas, and even your wife remain alive and that you all play your assigned roles in the drama that will shortly unfold."

Harry tensed, a reaction that fortunately wasn't very noticeable as he was Bound at the moment. It must be late, yet Hermione was not home. Or at least, she had not yet burst into the room, wand blasting spells at the person holding him against his will. A late night at the office? Harry dearly hoped so, he might still be able to find a way to turn the tables on Voldemort.

That did not seem like a reasonable goal at the moment, however.

"Perhaps we should discuss just what those roles are going to be," Harry suggested. "Just for the sake of argument, as it were."

Voldemort did not reply for some time, he simply sat looking at Harry, rubbing Ginny's chin thoughtfully. "That does violate my rule against divulging my evil plots," he said at last. "But as you will be False-Memory Charmed into believing what I want you to believe, along with Ginny Thomas and your wife, it might be interesting for once to tell you just what is going to happen to all of you."

Voldemort stood. "And speaking of your wife," he added. "Perhaps she should join us at this time." Without another word he turned disappeared down the hallway where their bedroom was, leaving Harry alone and anxious about what had happened to Hermione.

Harry immediately began trying to break the Body-Bind spell again. This one didn't feel as strong as the previous one had, but it still wasn't responding to his wandless counter charms. The Founders had given him some powerful dispelling charms, but they were all meant to work with a wand, and Voldemort still had his.

He needed to think of a way out of this mess, but that was the problem: the ritual that had given him a perfect memory had also taken away half of his intelligence, his ability to think logically and plan accordingly. He had access to all of his memories, but _using_ those memories to solve problems wasn't nearly as easy anymore.

At least he knew that Voldemort didn't plan to kill him, Ginny or Hermione, Harry reflected. Whatever happened to him, even if he was False-Memory Charmed, he might be able to use some type of memory trick, like his recognition code mnemonic, to help him remember that he'd been given false memories.

There was movement in the hallway Voldemort had walked into earlier and this time Harry could not repress the gasp of surprise that was ripped from him as he recognized his wife floating before the Dark Lord. She was curled in a fetal form, arms hugging her drawn-up legs, and everywhere Harry could see exposed skin it appeared cyanotic. "What the hell did you do to her, Riddle?!" Harry shouted angrily.

Voldemort made no reply, but simply floated Hermione's body next to the chair where Harry was Bound. Dust and debris on the floor blew away, leaving a relatively clean spot for her, and she slowly sank to the ground. Even turning his head, Harry could only see part of her from his vantage point in the chair — the armrest blocked the rest of her. She did not appear to be breathing. "I thought you said you needed her alive," Harry rasped, fearing the worst.

"It is a Hibernation Charm," Voldemort said, sitting down across from Harry once again. "I set a trap in your 'Bat Cave' for when she returned home, having removed several items from there beforehand."

"You've been in the Bat Cave?" Harry frowned. "That's not possib—"

"Oh, please," Voldemort said, almost wearily. "Have you forgotten who I _am_, Mr. Potter?"

Harry hadn't forgotten, of course, but he hadn't expected Voldemort to suddenly reappear, either. "Whatever," he said, dismissively. "You need to remove that spell from Hermione _immediately_, before it harms her!"

"The spell is perfectly safe for up to a half-year on the average human," Voldemort pointed out. "On wizards it can last for up to a year before fat reserves are depleted and the body begins consuming its own muscle mass. Your wife has been under the spell for only a few hours — she will be fine while I describe the scenario I've devised for you, Ginny and your wife." Voldemort smiled thinly. "Unless you'd prefer I simply put your false memories in place right now?"

"I'm listening," Harry muttered, grimly.

Voldemort sat back with a satisfied smile. "I do admit this scenario is a bit rushed — your and Monroe's actions at Hogwarts forced my hand to some extent, but it's also true that had you not found a way around the Interdict, it might have been years before I made my move against the Ministry."

"The Ministry again?" Harry shook his head. "That didn't come off so well the first time." Voldemort had made an effort in Harry's seventh year to wrest control of the Ministry from then-Minister Rufus Scrimgeour, who had gained control the year before as Cornelius Fudge was pushed out by Lucius Malfoy, who found he had become so corrupt that he was taking money from other pureblood wizards as well as Malfoy.

Before Voldemort could succeed, however, Harry and Dumbledore had located his ring Horcrux and destroyed it, and they and Order of the Phoenix members confronted him as he and a number of Death Eaters stormed the Ministry in an all-out effort to take it from Scrimgeour's control. Voldemort killed the Headmaster during the initial confrontation, but Harry, using Dumbledore's wand, was able to defeat him afterwards.

"That is true," Voldemort agreed, "but this time I won't be quite so straightforward as I was the last time. In any event, the Ministry will be distracted by a major accomplishment this time — they will be celebrating the arrest of Harry Potter for practicing forbidden magic — and murder."

"Murder," Harry snorted. "Do you mean Monroe? I know you used my wand to kill him. But a lot of people knew we were friends, they'll question why I would suddenly kill him without reason."

Voldemort put an arm on the armrest of his chair and leaned his face against his palm. "Because when you woke up in the apartment earlier Ginny was there but Monroe was gone, and she told you she was in love with him and had decided to leave Dean, and you, and be with him."

Harry had to laugh at that in spite of the cold chill that statement sent up his spine. "Ginny's not that mental. She and Dean are going through a rough patch but they'll work it out eventually. And she's never shown the slightest indication she's interested in Monroe. Or was," he added, soberly, remembering that Monroe was dead now.

"She'd been wanting to tell you for some time," Voldemort went on as if Harry hadn't spoken. "She's still fiercely loyal to you but she was worried about what you and Monroe have been doing these past few months — trying to find the Source of Magic, trying to break the Interdict, and even trying to figure out how to initiate a Magical Singularity. All of these things would cause massive disruptions to the wizarding world, not just in Britain, but worldwide. In fact, she's the reason why her brother Ron has been writing the Ministry with information on your activities, trying to spur Head Auror Malfoy into investigating what you've been doing."

"But that's really been _your_ doing, hasn't it?" Harry said, in a hard voice. He glanced to his side where his wife still lay curled up in a ball, barely breathing. "Hermione's been up my back about it as well — subtly, because she doesn't know most of the details, only that Monroe and I were discussing those subjects, but she's been afraid that Malfoy was going to start leaning on _her_ to explain what I've been doing. He already tried to raid my business, as you know, and find something incriminating there."

"He'll be here later tonight," Voldemort told him. "Ginny will have sent him a message offering to give herself up for the murder of the three Aurors in exchange for information about Harry Potter's illegal magical activities, and as a witness to his murder of James Monroe, in order to gain leniency for her punishment at Azkaban. Malfoy will come here to take her into custody. Fortunate for both you and her that the dementors are no longer used there."

Harry glanced to his side once again. "And how does Hermione figure in all this?"

Voldemort smiled. "As a participant, hardly at all. She knew none of what was going on between you, Ginny and Monroe beyond your magical investigations, but was unaware of your illegal actions.

"However, with you and Ginny being sent to Azkaban, she will undergo a breakdown and resign as Minister of Magic. She will appoint Draco Malfoy as interim Minister, and within a month or so he will be elected Minister in his own right." Voldemort sat back, waiting to see what Harry would make of that.

"So Draco ends up as Minister," Harry said, slowly. Given what Voldemort was capable of, it wasn't hard to draw the conclusion— "You'll possess Draco at some point, making you the Minister of Magic," he finished.

Voldemort applauded softly. "Very good, Mr. Potter. I see you retained enough intelligence to work that out on your own."

Harry made a gesture of indifference. "That will probably make Lucius happy, but I can't imagine you'll be happy with the paperwork and drudgery of that position. Dark Lords make rather poor bureaucrats."

Voldemort chuckled. "I shall consider myself warned. Other than that, what do you think of my plan?"

Harry didn't answer. Alarmingly, it seemed plausible enough, given that the False-Memory Charms were good enough to fool the improved Veritaserum the Ministry used these days. Harry had to assume Voldemort had taken that into account. "It might work," he finally admitted, trying to put doubt into his voice.

"It will," Voldemort answered immediately. "I have all the details worked out precisely. Malfoy will enter this apartment, ostensibly alone, because of an agreement with Ginny, but he'll have Crabbe and Goyle with him, Disillusioned, after he allows Ginny to cast detection charms before giving up her wand to him.

"But her wand, touching his hand, will trigger a spell that will allow me to slip out of Ginny and into him, undetectably, and I will lie dormant for several hours before asserting my dominance over him. By then he will have you and Ginny on your way to Azkaban, and Hermione, heartbroken by the loss of her husband and one of her closest friends, will resign as Minister of Magic. Since no one even believes the Dark Lord could have returned once again, no one will be the wiser. And I will begin consolidating my position as Minister using Lucius's money and influence, weakening and corrupting the Wizengamot until it becomes useless as a political tool, leaving the Ministry the supreme law of the land."

"For what it's worth," Harry said, in a cold, grim tone, "I think you'll fail."

A thin smile spread across Voldemort's lips. "And what leads you to that conclusion, Mr. Potter? Wishful thinking, perhaps?"

That wasn't far from the truth, but— "You don't have the patience to be Minister, Tom. You're more of a puppet master than a puppet — you prefer to be behind the scenes, directing your minions' actions rather than interacting with the dozens of people you'll need to deal with to be Minister."

Voldemort's expression had changed from cynical amusement to thoughtful contemplation. "I do not necessarily agree with your assessment," he said, quietly. "But you do make salient points that I will consider after the Ministry is mine." He stood. "For now, however, we will finish up here and get you and Ginny on your way to Azkaban."

Voldemort stepped next to Hermione and pointed his wand at her, moving it in a quick but complicated pattern. Her body glowed faintly yellow for several moments. "Your wife is now free of the Hibernation Charm. It will take several minutes for her body to warm to a temperature where her body will be relaxed enough to unfold, at which time I will administer a Warming Potion and a Sleeping Potion. I do not wish her to awaken until after Malfoy and the Aurors have arrived and taken you and Ginny into custody."

Harry had listened to Voldemort's monologue in silence. "When are you going to False-Memory Charm Hermione?"

"It is already done," Voldemort replied. "I took care of that after placing her under the Hibernation Charm. Ginny has had her memories altered as well — she will be under their influence after I leave her body for Malfoy's. That leaves only _you_, Mr. Potter. Prepare yourself."

Voldemort pointed his wand at Harry. A jolt of nausea hit him and memories began flooding into his brain. It was not like being in a Pensieve, where you experienced another person's memories as if you were standing there with them, but like being force-fed thoughts. He was in Ginny's apartment with her, she was telling him she planned to leave Dean and run away with Monroe to America, she had to go because she'd killed the three Aurors who'd come into her home to question her and Dean. She'd done it so she could rescue Monroe and Harry from Hogwarts, primarily Monroe. Harry felt shocked and betrayed, and when Monroe entered the apartment Harry had pushed Ginny aside and angrily murdered Monroe with the Killing Curse. A fight ensued between him and Ginny, which he won, Stunning her and Portkeying them to his home in the TBC Building, where he found Hermione under a Hibernation Charm. He revived her, but was then knocked out by Ginny using a second wand she'd secreted on her person.

Harry was concentrating on his recognition code mnemonic, hoping that somehow it would trigger his memory of the actual chain of events, which would only be suppressed by the False-Memory Charm, not erased. But it was unnecessary — both sequences of events were still easily remembered.

Voldemort was frowning. "Interesting," he said, staring into Harry's eyes; he could no longer move his head or even close his eyes. "You remember both your own memories and the ones I've implanted. Why?"

Harry knew why, but he wasn't going to say anything if —

"Of course," Voldemort said, chagrin in his voice. "The Total Memory Ritual allows you to recall _everything, _even memories that should be repressed. I had not counted on this." The wand was still leveled at Harry. "It may be, Mr. Potter, that I will be forced to kill you to keep you from talking, and make Ginny responsible for your death. Not really my first choice, since I prefer that you end your days in prison, but I may have no choice."


	24. The Monroe Connection

**Chapter Twenty-Four  
><strong>**The Monroe Connection**

_Updated_ 1/25/2013

=ooo=

"I have to say," Harry remarked dryly, though his blood had gone cold at Voldemort's last words, "that killing me would be a very _bad_ choice." He tried to move his head but Voldemort's enchantments still held it firmly in place. At least he could speak…

Voldemort looked amused. "I would expect no other response from you, Mr. Potter," he remarked, his wand still pointed at Harry.

"Because you're not thinking it through," Harry continued. "Killing me is going to unravel your entire plan." He just hoped he could support his _own_ reasoning — the ritual that had given him perfect recall of all his memories had taken away half his intelligence; rational thinking was no longer as easy as it had been for the past 36 years of his life.

"No, Mr. Potter," Voldemort disagreed, shaking his head slowly. "You are quite incorrect. It will be quite simple to integrate your death with the others that have occurred over the past two days." He gestured toward the curled-up figure of Hermione Granger-Potter-Verres-Evans, who lay unconscious on the floor next to Harry's chair. "When Hermione awakens in a few minutes, she will reach for the wand that is hidden on her person and attack whomever is nearby, believing they were her attacker. The person she attacks will be _you_, Mr. Potter, as you attempt to bring her back to consciousness after awakening from a Stunning Charm Ginny Thomas managed to cast on you before retreating from your apartment. The curse will be lethal at close range, though she will not cast the Killing Curse, of course — she is likely incapable of casting that spell in any case. Afterwards, regaining her full faculties, she will realize that she's unwittingly killed you and will turn herself over to the Ministry and resign her position as Minister of Magic.

"Her resignation will clear the way for Draco Malfoy to temporarily become the Minister of Magic, after which he will be elected to the position in his own right, given the Most Noble and Ancient House of Malfoy's financial resources and notable lack of ethics in matters of politics. Ginny Thomas, meanwhile, will have made arrangements to surrender personally to Draco Malfoy, and they will meet at her private apartment. At that time I will possess his body and alter Ginny's memories to conform to the new scenario." He inclined Ginny's head toward Harry, inviting a response.

"It sounds pretty plausible," Harry admitted, and found that he could move his head again. He rolled it to either side, loosening his neck muscles. "But it's not going to work."

"Come now, Mr. Potter," Voldemort said, a hint of disappointment in his voice. "You're going to have to do more to convince me than simply disagreeing with me."

Harry lifted his head, gesturing toward his apartment at large. "There is an undetectable detection spell on this apartment that sets off an alarm at the Ministry if someone dies in here. Malfoy and the entire Auror Office are going to converge on this place with wands drawn, expecting the worst. They know only I, Hermione, and a few close friends have access to our residence, and if they suspect I'm here, they'll come down on this place like a herd of nundus."

Voldemort stared at him for several seconds, then slowly smiled. "Very clever, Mr. Potter. Your mind is as opaque to me as ever; this supposedly 'undetectable' charm may or _may not_ be in place here in your apartment — I would have to leave immediately after your death or risk being caught by the Aurors. It will upset my plans if Malfoy arrests Mrs. Thomas before she is ready to meet him."

Harry nodded. Was Voldemort going to change his mind about killing him, or would he come up with another scenario where Harry would end up dead?

"There is another option, of course," Voldemort mused. "I can simply Obliviate _all_ of your memories, leaving your wife to take the blame."

"Assuming that would even work on me," Harry countered, "With the enhanced memory I have now. If a False-Memory Charm didn't work, what makes you think an Obliviate will?"

"You are not helping yourself, Mr. Potter," Voldemort pointed out. "If I cannot Obliviate nor False-Memory Charm you, I can still curse you with a spell that would prove fatal in a short but not immediate amount of time, giving me an opportunity to depart in a more leisurely fashion." He smiled evilly. "Perhaps even a Blood-Chilling Charm…"

Back near the end of their first year at Hogwarts Hermione had been accusing of casting a Blood-Chilling Charm on Draco Malfoy during a duel that was supposedly held in secret in the trophy room of the school. Draco had been found there, near death from the effects of the charm, and had been taken to St. Mungo's after being stabilized. The fact that _Professor Quirrell_ had found Draco and stabilized him before Flooing him to the hospital wasn't lost on Harry at the moment. The Defense Professor at Hogwarts in the years before Harry started there was always a suspect in any strange or illicit activities, and that year had proven to be no different.

"Very funny," Harry murmured, unsmiling. "The problem is, without Harry Potter's own testimony, the scenario you've envisioned is so unlikely that no one will believe it without significant corroboration."

"Your testimony would _confirm_ the allegations made by Ginny and Hermione," Voldemort countered. "But it is by no means essential. The Wizengamot will accept the results of Veritaserum interrogations, just as they always have."

"_They_ probably would," Harry conceded. "But the Auror Office under Minister of Magic Hermione Granger is much more discriminating these days. They will want confirmation, not merely testimony, especially testimony that could be given under false pretenses. Malfoy and his Aurors will scrutinize every detail of this case before they come to any conclusions — the idea that I would kill someone like James Monroe in a jealous rage is so out of character for me that they will have to suspect something like memory tampering or the Imperius curse has been used on Ginny or Hermione." One of the benefits of a science-aware Malfoy in the Auror Office had been his drive to do the best job he was capable of, even if it was only to make himself look good. The Auror Office had ironically benefitted from Malfoy's self-interest.

"By that time," Voldemort pointed out, "I will have had my meeting with Head Auror Malfoy, and he will no longer have any doubts about the credibility of Mrs. Thomas's or your wife's testimony."

"But that's not up to Malfoy alone," Harry countered. "The three most senior Aurors must now reach a consensus on the validity of the evidence when a wizard has been killed. Even if Malfoy considers the matter closed, two other Aurors will have to back him up before the case go to the Wizengamot."

Voldemort looked bemused. "So they are finally learning to think before they act," he muttered, almost to himself. He focused on Harry once again. "So, Mr. Potter, if killing you isn't an option, and false memories can't be implanted in your brain, do you have any suggestions?"

"You could counter the Memory Enhancing ritual," Harry said at once. "So that the False-Memory Charm would work. That is," he added, with a trace of hesitancy, "assuming you have a counter curse for the ritual. It was pre-Interdict magic — it could be irreversible."

"No magic is irreversible, Mr. Potter," Voldemort said. "It's merely a matter of what you are willing to sacrifice to achieve the desired outcome." He stood, pacing back and forth several times before looking at Harry once again.

"It can be done," he said, quietly. "But the cost will be significant, especially for someone going into Azkaban, to which you will undoubtedly be sentenced."

"What is the cost?" Harry asked, calmly.

"You will be weakened physically," Voldemort replied. "You will be only half the man you are now as far as your strength and endurance are concerned."

"And what of my intelligence?" Harry asked, keeping any hesitancy from his voice this time.

"Unchanged," Voldemort told him. "It will not return to what it was before, if that's what you were hoping, Mr. Potter. Dark rituals are not very forgiving when it comes to restoring lost abilities."

So, he could get rid of the memory enhancing magic, so Voldemort wouldn't be forced to kill him, but he would only be half as smart and strong as before. Not a very good tradeoff, Harry thought to himself, but it would still give him time to figure a way out of this. If he could.

"If my only other choice is death," Harry said plaintively, "I think I'll take my chances."

Before Voldemort could reply, however, they both heard a soft gasp, like a baby taking its first breath. Harry turned his head, straining to see over the edge of his chair, but was held fast by the Body-Bind spell still on him. Voldemort stood, crouching beside him as he put a hand over Hermione's mouth. "She is beginning to come out of the Hibernation Charm," Voldemort said. "A rather inopportune moment, unfortunately." He stood, taking out his wand, and made complicated patterns in the air above her. Returning to his chair, he regarded Harry silently.

"What did you do to her?" Harry asked tensely.

"Just a Sleep Charm that will take effect as she becomes conscious," Voldemort replied. "We don't need her awakening during the Memory Enhancing counter-ritual, and it will take some time to perform that."

Harry nodded, mollified. There was only one other thing he needed from Voldemort before he threw himself under the bus of lost intelligence, strength, and freedom. "Before we do the ritual and you have the Wizengamot throw me and Ginny into Azkaban, I want you to tell me something."

Voldemort tilted his head slightly, looking interested. "Mr. Potter, you know one of my rules is 'don't brag,' yet I sense you are about to ask me to do just that."

Harry would have shrugged except his shoulders were immobilized. "You're going to False-Memory Charm me, and I suspect Obliviate me as well — I don't know how I'm going to manage to remember anything you tell me, given that I'm literally going to be only half the man I was a few days ago."

"You underestimate yourself," Voldemort replied, which was something Harry hadn't heard in a while. "However," the Dark Lord continued, "I can make sure that whatever I tell you will be beyond your reach after the counter-ritual is completed and your memories are appropriately modified. What is your question?"

"Where and how did you manage to survive unnoticed since you were supposedly defeated back in 1998?" Harry asked. "And why," he continued, "did you kill James Monroe? If you'd left him alive you could have modified his memories to provide additional testimony against me."

"That is more than one question, Mr. Potter," Voldemort noted matter-of-factly. "However, as I am already violating one of my rules in telling you anything at all, and the questions you've asked have a related answer, I believe I can provide a suitable response."

Voldemort sat back in his chair, spreading his arms in a gesture of _here-I-am_. "As to where I have been these past 18 years," he said, smiling. "I have always been _here_."

Harry stared at the Dark Lord for a full half-minute before replying. "Inside — Ginny? You're…lying."

Voldemort's expression was opaque. "_Am_ I, Mr. Potter? Is that fact so difficult for you to grasp?"

"It's _impossible_ to grasp!" Harry shook his head. "After I took your diary away from Ginny Dumbledore made sure there were no lingering — traces — of you inside her. I've had the diary since then, and when Dumbledore and I destroyed it in my sixth year that should have been the end of that Horcrux!"

"That _was_ the end of that Horcrux, Mr. Potter," Voldemort agreed. "Your mistake was not destroying it immediately upon finding it. I had already had most of that school year to forge a bond with Miss Weasley. After all," he smiled knowingly, "the function of a Horcrux is not merely as a phylactery — I am almost surprised you haven't yet learned that."

"There's a surprising dearth of material on the subject," Harry said, tightly. "You've made sure of that. The book you stole from the Restricted Section of the Library — the scroll from Borgin and Burkes. I presume those were your sources? The rest is vague hints and rumors spread among dozens of other books and scrolls, but nothing giving real information or instruction."

"Indeed," Voldemort nodded confirmation. "It would have been a fool's errand, trying to remove every reference to Horcrux from every library in Wizarding Britain, for that might have fostered suspicion needlessly; as it was, it did not escape old Dumbledore's attention. But then, he never trusted me."

"With good reason," Harry muttered.

There was silence for some time between them.

Harry finally spoke. "Do you intend to tell —"

"Have you not already guessed, Mr. Potter?" Voldemort's eyebrow went up in mild surprise, but was replaced by a cruel smile. "Ah. I forgot — your mental faculties are not up to what they were just a few days ago. Let me explain, then.

"Even Dumbledore did not know the full extent of a Horcrux's powers. He had the one book in the Library that gave instruction on its creation, but that author's knowledge was derivative," Voldemort continued. "The scroll at Borgin and Burkes, however, explained all — to those who could avoid the curses that had been laid upon it. Neither Borgin nor Burke had ever tried to read it, though it sat on the shelf in their shop for years before I came to work for them. I suspect even Dumbledore himself would have had trouble discovering its contents, had he known of its existence."

"You can stop patting yourself on the back any time," Harry muttered.

Voldemort chuckled. "You must allow me to enjoy my bragging at least a little bit, Mr. Potter. After all, this is the first time I've done so since manifesting my presence openly in Mrs. Thomas's body."

"Whatever," Harry snorted. "Get on with it."

"Well, to the heart of the matter, then," Voldemort went on, briskly. "Creating a Horcrux is a two-part process. The first part is to enchant an object using a ritual. It has never been given a name, but we might call it the Horcrux Ritual. Most of the spell can be performed ahead of time — it requires several hours to prepare the object — but it is sealed with the life of a human."

"I knew that much," Harry told him, still revolted by the idea itself. "Though the statues of the Founders at Hogwarts said murder wasn't necessary."

"Probably true," Voldemort agreed. "A death was probably incorporated in the original ritual because it evoked strong feelings and emotions, and that strengthened the caster for the next part of the process."

Wait a minute. "Hold on," Harry was staring at Voldemort, perplexed. "Why would you say that? Committing murder is what is supposed to split the wizard's soul, so they could bind part of it into the object to create the Horcrux."

"Oh, surely, Mr. Potter, you don't believe all those stories about souls and so on, do you? I thought you were more intelligent than _that_."

=ooo=

Harry's mouth opened, then closed, several times before he shut it at last, then sat staring at Voldemort in disbelief. "I don't suppose I do," he said at last, slowly. "But if you _performed_ the ritual, and more than once, then you must believe that is what's happening when you — _kill_ — the v-victim when you cast the spell."

"Tom Riddle believed it," Voldemort said, with an almost sheepish expression on his face. "But it has been a long time since those days, and I have gained quite a bit of knowledge and…insight…since then. Some of that relates, indirectly, to your friend Monroe. However, if you've heard enough, I can begin the ritual to remove your memories and be on my way to meet with Draco Malfoy."

"No," Harry said softly. Whatever he could do to delay that would be to his advantage. "Go ahead."

"The next part of the process," Voldemort continued, as if resuming a college lecture that had been interrupted by an impertinent student, "is to place part of yourself into the enchanted object. That is done by evoking the Patronus Charm and causing it to move into the enchanted object, making it into a Horcrux."

There was another stretch of silence.

"Okay," Harry said, disbelievingly. "Now you're just messing with me."

"I assure you I am quite serious, Mr. Potter," Voldemort said, a trace of irritation in his voice. "We have too much to discuss for me to 'mess with you,' as you put it."

"But that can't be right!" Harry demanded. "The Patronus is a spell of the Light! Dark wizards can't even _cast_ it!"

"That is a useful fiction, Mr. Potter," Voldemort declared. "One that has been told and repeated time and again for centuries, if not millennia. "You have heard, no doubt, that a wizard thought incapable of casting the Patronus will succeed when the need is great; for example, when confronted with a dementor?"

Harry nodded. Dumbledore had told him that in his first year. "But… to cast a Patronus right after _killing_ someone… are you saying you actually did that?" Voldemort nodded. "But what — what happens to the Patronus afterwards…?"

"It becomes part of the Horcrux, and completes the ritual," Voldemort explained. "Have you never considered what a Patronus really is, Mr. Potter? It is an image of your innermost being, made corporeal by your magic. It can even speak with your voice."

"But not much," Harry protested. "Not more than a sentence or two."

"It is only an image of you," Voldemort said. "But it is still _you_. That is what you bind up in a Horcrux — not a bit of your imaginary soul, but an image of who you are. It is more than a ghost, which is nothing but an afterimage of a dead wizard. It is more than the living portraits that wizards create, seemingly possessing intelligence but which are not really sentient, or conscious."

Harry was nodding slowly. The idea had surprised him, because he had believed Voldemort incapable of casting a Patronus, but for some time he himself had been unable to cast one. That had gnawed at him, cut into him, made him feel…wrong…on several levels. The first Dementor he stood against had nearly ended him, that day in January of 1992, had taken nearly everything from him that made him human. He'd remembered for the first time his mother Lily's desperate plea to save her son, and the fool's bargain the Dark Lord had offered her: herself to die, and her son to live. Except that James was already dead, and Lord Voldemort would have no reason to keep the bargain after Lily was gone. With desperate hate she tried to cast the Killing Curse on Voldemort, but he cast the spell more quickly than her, and she had died.

Remembering that had broken Harry, had left him empty and falling into hate and despair. Worse, when he'd fallen his wand had landed near the true-forged titanium cage that held the Dementor, within inches of it, and it had continued to feed upon him through his wand, though he was far from the Dementor itself, until Professor Quirrell had Flitwick Summon Harry's wand to him. But even that did not dispel the black anger, the hate, the desire for killing and blood and death that held him even as Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, attempted to sooth him with phoenix song and Dumbledore forced chocolate down his throat. But he would not be soothed, he remembered; he'd fully intended to kill everyone there once he'd recovered the strength to do it — even Dumbledore. Perhaps even Quirrell, if the Defense Professor had opposed him. It would be difficult, but not impossible, especially if they weren't expecting him to do anything but lay there eating chocolate.

Then Hermione had kissed him. That completely unexpected action brought him back from the precipice he'd teetered on, willing himself to fall into and give himself over to the Darkness. Instead, he'd pushed her away, shouting "_I told you, no kissing_!" A moment later the phoenix song finally touched his ears, and he was Harry again.

Then, after he'd recovered, he went back to the cage where the Dementor was, and destroyed it. His corporeal Patronus was not in the form of an animal, but a man, the human animal, the _rational_ animal, and when he (and it) had comprehended what the Dementor was, it could stand before him no more.

Harry jolted when Voldemort suddenly spoke quietly. "You've been quiet for some time, Mr. Potter. Remembering your own Patronus?"

How could he have guessed that, Harry wondered. Had his Occlumency guards slipped momentarily? "Just… wondering how Hermione is doing," he said at last, feeling like it was a lame deflection, though she had just been in his thoughts. "It's been a while since you…"

"She is breathing normally now," Voldemort volunteered. "I can see her chest slowly rising and falling. She is merely sleeping now, until I awaken her."

"I have a question," Harry said suddenly, to take his mind off Hermione and keep the conversation going about Patronuses and Horcruxes. "Why did you kill if you knew it wasn't necessary for the creation of a Horcrux?"

The Dark Lord sat back, regarding Harry silently for some time. "You remember the spell I cast for you a few times during your first year, the stars." It was a statement, not a question.

"I remember it." Standing in the middle of starry space, surrounded by the universe. Harry had searched for that spell in hundreds of old books of magic over the years. He'd wondered it if had been a spell Voldemort learned from Salazar Slytherin's Monster, but why would Slytherin care about such a spell?

"Have you ever wondered where Lord Voldemort found such a spell?"

"The Monster," Harry answered immediately. It was a guess, but it he'd never come across it in any of the books he'd combed through. Slytherin's Monster seemed the logical alternative.

But Voldemort shook his head. "I learned it from Monroe."

"What?" Harry said, automatically, to cover his confusion, but his perfect memory suddenly recalled there was another, older Monroe. "You mean David Monroe?"

"Indeed."

"You killed him too, I'd wager."

"In a manner of speaking," Voldemort replied, cryptically. "He also killed me."

Harry blinked, then smiled humorlessly. "Not well enough for it to take, apparently. I'm surprised you would even admit such a thing."

"At one time I would not have," Voldemort agreed. "But I've…grown…since my days at Hogwarts. My first time at Hogwarts, that is, when I was a student there. What do you know of David Monroe?" he suddenly asked.

"He was the last heir of the House of Monroe," Harry answered. "According to Ministry documents Moody once showed me, he reappeared in 1971 after being gone for 25 years. Before that the House of Monroe had been thought destroyed, by you murdering all of its heirs, and your movement of 'Death Eaters' were increasing in numbers and power. His father, Blaise Monroe, was one of the few voices in the Wizengamot that would speak openly against you, and he was found murdered shortly after David returned to Britain, before the elder Monroe had the opportunity to openly admit David was his son."

Voldemort was nodding. "Yes. I had thought myself rid of them until the younger Monroe returned and claimed his place in the Wizengamot as Lord Monroe. After twenty-five years, I had thought him dead and forgotten."

"He was a student at Hogwarts about the same time you were, wasn't he?"

Voldemort smiled, but the expression held no mirth. "He was, if anyone could be described thus, my nemesis at school. He started a year after I did, sorted into Gryffindor, and we took an instant dislike to one another.

"Blaise Monroe was his father, but his mother was a Muggle that Blaise had a brief affair with. We Slytherins delighted in pointing out that he was a bastard. In return, he made it his business to meddle in our plots and activities." Voldemort seemed almost to brood as he said this. "He somehow learned that Tom Riddle framed Rubeus Hagrid for the opening of the Chamber of Secrets, in 1943. When he went to Headmaster Dippet, however, the headmaster believed Monroe was trying to unfairly discredit me — given the choice between myself and Hagrid, Dippet preferred to believe that oafish half-giant opened the Chamber, not me."

"So you got away with the death of Abigail Myrtle, and with the knowledge Salazar Slytherin placed within the Basilisk," Harry finished.

Voldemort smiled a self-satisfied smile. "Monroe swore he would make sure I would never again ruin anyone as I had ruined Hagrid. His skill at magic was close to mine but most of his time at Hogwarts was spent in my shadow — I heard he was nearly chosen as Head Boy in his seventh year but Aldous Lupin was chosen over him, probably at Dippet's request. I, meanwhile, was working at Borgin and Burkes, acquiring various and sundry items of interest for those two old cheats — until I came across the scroll in their possession describing the powers and abilities of a Horcrux.

"I had already created two Horcruxes, the diary of T.M. Riddle and the ring of Marvolo Gaunt, and I had no intention before then of spreading myself any thinner, for three is a magically powerful number." Voldemort leaned forward, staring intently at Harry. "But that scroll taught me things about Horcruxes that no other book or scroll contained, and its author suggested a rather ingenious use for the Horcrux Ritual, one I confess I would never have thought of on my own."

Harry leaned forward as well — or rather, he tried to, though the Body-Bind spell only let him incline his head toward Voldemort. "And what was that?" he asked.

"Patience, Mr. Potter," the Dark Lord deflected the question. "I will answer that shortly, but for now we must travel forward a quarter of a century, to when David Monroe thrust himself back into my affairs."

"Never mind that you had murdered everyone in his family except his father by then," Harry coldly pointed out.

"Indeed," Voldemort seemed to ignore the tone of Harry's retort. "I was quite enjoying the cat-and-mouse game I was playing with the old man, making him wonder when and how I would come for him. He believed his manor was impregnable. It wasn't, but it would have been too easy to kill him there. I thought the last of an Ancient House deserved a more fitting end. I killed him as he attempted to enter the Ministry for a meeting of the Wizengamot, to speak against me once again." Voldemort sighed with reminiscence.

"I read the Ministry documents," Harry said again.

Voldemort's expression turned hard. "You may imagine my displeasure when it was later announced that David Monroe had returned from abroad only a few days earlier, and that his father had updated his will acknowledging him as his son."

"I'm sure you were furious," Harry murmured dryly. "How is Hermione doing?"

"Still breathing," Voldemort replied, curtly, without glancing at her. "Please don't distract me while I talk, Mr. Potter — I may decide not to make you the offer I plan on extending to you, as a one-time courtesy."

Harry sighed. "You've been full of surprises so far today, Tom," he said, tiredly. "You've been positively gabby about yourself, and how you're offering me courtesies? I am shocked."

Voldemort laughed, a dry cold chuckle that did not fit the face that showed his amusement. "Of course my intentions are not completely selfless. But I will offer you an alternate solution to losing half of both your strength and intelligence, and spending the rest of your life in Azkaban prison."

"You already did make an offer," Harry reminded him. "But as involved killing me, I can't say I'm much interested."

"Another alternative, then," Voldemort clarified. "Your memory would remain intact, and your intelligence, while still not up to its original level, would be higher than it is now."

Harry tilted his head as an alternative to a shrug. He couldn't imagine making a deal with the man who'd tried to kill him more than once while he was still in school, but he could use the time. "What's your offer?"

"I must finish my story about Monroe first," the Dark Lord said. "By the end of it you will see that what I offer is a very good opportunity for you to remain free and in better condition than you are now."

"Go ahead," Harry said. "I'm not going anywhere."

Voldemort chuckled, then composed himself and began. "After Monroe revealed himself to the Wizengamot I stalked him for some time, looking for an opportunity to strike. It was important that I find him quickly and end the Monroe line — my followers were few, and I felt that ending an Ancient and Noble line that spoke so vehemently against me would draw more to me.

"Monroe, however, was clever — and as it turned out, had become quite a skillful wizard. I sent some younger Death Eaters to fight him, to see how he would handle them. He dispatched them easily, and his influence in the Wizengamot increased. I knew I could not let that stand, so I sent a message directly to him, to challenge him to single battle. He accepted and we met at an agreed-upon place, each using our own Portkeys to arrive at a random distance from one another, to ensure that we were both alone."

"So you and Monroe fought," Harry said, slowly. "And obviously, you won —"

"Not so obviously, Mr. Potter," Voldemort said.

"Uuunnnhnh…" Harry almost thought he'd made that noise. But Voldemort had straightened suddenly, staring at the floor next to Harry's chair.

"Interesting…" the Dark Lord murmured. "She awakens…."

"Let me help her!" Harry said instantly, struggling to rise in spite of the Body-Bind. Voldemort raised an eyebrow, but took out a wand and flicked it at Harry, who bolted out of the chair, landing next to Hermione, who was moaning softly. "I thought you put her to sleep!" Harry cradled her head. Her body was no longer frozen, but she could barely move, it seemed.

"I did," Voldemort replied mildly. "Apparently she really wanted to wake up." Harry was checking her wrist, then her neck, for a pulse. There was one, just barely, but it was thin and very weak. He looked up at Voldemort, his expression fierce.

"So _help_ her!" Harry shouted. "You don't want her to die, do you? Won't that screw up your plans for us?"

"As you will," Voldemort shrugged. He pointed his wand at them and said, "_Rennervate_." Hermione jerked like she was shocked; her eyes flew open, unseeing, and she reached unerringly into her robes, withdrawing a wand which she started to point at Harry. The automatic reaction when she awoke, Harry realized. At a gesture from Voldemort's wand, however, Hermione's flew from her hand.

Harry snatched it out of the air, then lunged toward the Dark Lord shouting "_Stupef_ —"

He fell on his face. His legs _jiggled _— they'd been hit with the Jelly-Legs Jinx. Voldemort laughed, cruelly and heartily. "Ah, Mr. Potter, you are _so_ predictable when you are desperate!" He flicked his wand and the wand flew out of Harry's hand, caught by the Voldemort. He flicked his wand again, and a chair in a corner flipped back onto its legs and slid over next to them as Hermione shook her head and sat up, finally fully conscious.

"Ginny? _Harry_?! Where have you _been_? When did you two get here? I was —"

"Hold on," Harry said sharply. He turned back to Voldemort. "We need to continue our conversation alone."

"Wait — _what_?" Hermione looked shocked. "What were you and Ginny talking about?"

"ThatsnotGinny," Harry said, speaking rapidly. "ItsVoldemorthestakenoverGinn ysbody — _owww_!" He rubbed his side where the Dark Lord's Stinging Hex had caught him, giving Voldemort a furious look.

"Since Mrs. Granger-Potter has seen fit to awaken during our conversation," Voldemort said, giving her a cold smile. "I think she should hear it as well, even if she won't remember anything afterwards."

"After what?" Hermione said, shrilly. "You're not —" she jerked as her mind finally caught up with what Harry had said. "You're — not — Ginny!"

Voldemort smiled. "Ginny is here somewhere," he corrected her. "Just not in charge of this body at the moment. At the moment your husband and I are in the midst of a conversation about my old friend Monroe and our battle."

"You fought James?" Hermione's eyes were wide with shock. "Where is he? What — what happened?"

"Not that Monroe," Harry said, his voice low. "The one he supposedly killed in 1971, the one that made him so popular back then. James is —" Harry shook his head, unable to continue.

"Oh, no…" Hermione whispered. Her eyes locked on Voldemort. "_You_ _killed_ _him_? You bastard! What did he ever do to _you_?"

Voldemort's face was expressionless. "Nothing but present an opportunity which I exploited. The same way I exploited your trust in Ginny by having you show her your husband's 'Bat Cave'."

Harry jerked in surprise. He'd have leaped to his feet if he legs weren't as soft as taffy. "You showed Ginny the Bat Cave?!" How could she do that?! She knew that he'd only shown it to her and one other person. And that other person was now dead.

"I —" Hermione looked at him helplessly. "She —" She didn't know what to say. "I — I thought I could trust her! I mean, it's _Ginny_!" She looked anguished. "I _thought_ it was Ginny!"

Voldemort _giggled_. "Yes, one of my better performances that day, I must admit. You were almost _begging_ to show it to me, my dear."

Harry summoned the herculean effort necessary to put that revelation behind him. "Alright," he muttered. "Moving on, then. You were about to describe the battle between you and David Monroe."

"Indeed. Mrs. Potter, would you have a seat?" Voldemort pointed with his wand to the chair behind her. Hermione glanced slowly at the chair, then at Harry and back to Voldemort, trying to take in everything around her without seeming to do so.

"I would not advise trying to attack me or escape," Voldemort told her, in a cold, matter-of-fact tone. "Your husband is defenseless and unable to move, and I can incapacitate both of you in less than a second." He looked at Harry. "And you will never hear…the _rest_ of the story."

Harry turned to her. His head moved a fraction, side to side, warning her off of trying anything for now. It would be a desperate chance at best. They needed some kind of lucky break. His eyes moved to the chair, indicating she should sit.

Hermione sat down very slowly, looking at Harry all the while. There wasn't much she could do anyway — her wand was no longer in its hidden pocket in her clothing. As her weight rested on the seat of the chair, fingers reached out from the arms and front legs, grabbing and holding her in place. She squeaked involuntarily, but made no other sound, only looking at Voldemort with loathing.

"Now, to continue," Voldemort resumed; Harry wondered if he detected a hint of impatience in the voice, as if the Dark Lord was anxious to finish his tale and make Harry the offer he had obliquely promised earlier. "I shall not trouble you with the details of our battle — needless to say, we both fought brilliantly. Monroe was nearly my equal in Defense; time and again he managed to evade or deflect my curses, and when I finally tired of the game, I cast the Killing Curse at him, at point-blank range.

"To my very great surprise, I missed."

"He _dodged_ your Killing Curse?" Hermione asked, before Harry could say anything. "Harry's told me you could cast it in less than half a second."

Voldemort raised an eyebrow at Harry. "Ah, you remember that, Mr. Potter? But of course you would _now_."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," Harry said quickly, but he had a sinking feeling Voldemort wouldn't let it drop.

He didn't. "Your husband found a way around the Interdict of Merlin, Madam Minister," the Dark Lord said, smiling cruelly. "One of the spells he learned was a Memory Enhancing Ritual, a spell that gave him a perfect memory."

Hermione blanched. "What was the ritual's sacrifice?" she asked, tremulously.

"Half his intelligence," Voldemort said flatly. "That's why he's not thinking as fast as you might expect him to."

"Oh, Harry…" Hermione said, sadly. "I'm so sorry —"

"It's done," Harry cut her off, inwardly raging at Voldemort. He'd hoped to spare her that knowledge as well as what he would have to do to avoid being killed by Voldemort because he could no longer be Obliviated or False-Memory Charmed while the spell's effects were still active. Voldemort could remove the ritual, but at the additional cost of half his strength. And if he didn't find some way out of this mess he was going to end up in Azkaban for killing Monroe, along with Ginny who was accused of murdering three Aurors. "What happened after you missed?" he growled at Voldemort, hoping to get off the current topic.

"We exchanged more curses, and Monroe cast a combination that damaged my heart. As I fell I cast a Cutting Hex that split him open from crotch to chest, and we both fell to the ground, mortally wounded.

"Now you might wonder at how I managed to survive this predicament," the Dark Lord murmured. He reached into his robes and produced a wand. "This was my first wand, the wand I bought from Ollivanders in 1938." He held it up for Harry and Hermione to see. "Yew, thirteen and a half inches long, with a phoenix feather core."

Hermione was looking at it curiously in spite of the fear she felt, seeing it in Voldemort's hand. "I've never seen Ginny with that wand."

"She never would have shown it to you, even unknowingly," Voldemort replied. "While she was herself she never knew of its existence." The Dark Lord turned to Harry. "One of the spells I learned from Salazar Slytherin's Monster was a way to link my conscious mind with an object that had had the Horcrux Ritual cast upon it. Normally, when you create a Horcrux it stores only an image of you at a point in time, as I did with the diary and Marvolo Gaunt's ring. With the spell I learned from the Basilisk, however, I could always be linked with that Horcrux, and could move myself between my body and that object."

"What does that _mean_?" Hermione asked, aghast at the idea.

"I can guess," Harry said grimly. "Even if _you_ were killed, if your wand was a Horcrux it could only be destroyed by Basilisk venom or Fiendfyre, and you made sure the Basilisk was dealt with after you took Slytherin's knowledge from it. Am I wrong in thinking that you could influence people who touched your wand, just as Ginny was influenced by you during the time she had your diary?"

"Yes, quite," Voldemort nodded, a cold smile on his lips. "I learned that my wand had been kept by Dumbledore after Quirrell's death in 1992, and I was able to take control of Ginny, having her make her way into Dumbledore's office one day when he was away, and into that room of black pedestals and silver light, where he kept the spoils of his adventures. My wand — _this_ wand — had been placed there after my defeat, and while my diary still had a measure of control over her, you suspected Ginny was being manipulated, somehow; I knew I would have to give up the diary, so I determined to get my wand back and maintain my control of Ginny. I Transfigured a replica of my wand, using Salazar's magic to make it permanent, and left it in place of mine."

Hermione was shaking her head, her eyes wide with horror. "You mean you were in control of Ginny _all that time _since her first year?"

Voldemort almost looked offended. "Of course not, Mrs. Potter. I had no wish to operate out of the body of an eleven-year old girl! I had her give the wand to a more suitable, shall we say, body donor."

Harry and Hermione's eyes locked for a moment. It had taken six more years for Voldemort to return after Quirrell's defeat, but he _had_ returned, and in a form that no one could have suspected hid the Dark Lord.

He returned in the body of Percy Weasley.

Percy, who'd left Hogwarts in 1994 as Head Boy, had secured a post at the Ministry of Magic working for Cornelius Fudge as his personal assistant. By the time Fudge had worn out his usefulness to the Malfoys and was replaced by Rufus Scrimgeour, Percy had become an undersecretary in the International Magical Office of Law, and Scrimgeour had put him on track to become Senior Undersecretary to the Minister himself in a few more years. If Harry and Dumbledore had not realized that there were still Horcruxes out there tying Voldemort to the material world, he might have gone on to become Minister.

After Percy left Hogwarts he estranged himself from his parents, brothers and sister; it had seemed strange at the time, but in retrospect it made sense. He kept no close relationships, throwing himself into his Ministry work and building up a network of contacts in the Ministry, where he was well-regarded as a hard worker and brilliant at his job. His mother Molly had fretted and cried over his aloofness, continually nagging her husband Arthur to invite Percy home for dinner, but the younger Weasley refused all of his father's overtures.

Harry was ready to leave Hogwarts by the time he and Professor Dumbledore puzzled out the riddle of the resurrected Quirrell. Quirrell's body was still in the Department of Mysteries, carefully watched by the Unspeakables for any sign of movement or life. It would still be there except that Hermione had had it removed after she became Minister, having it placed in an unmarked grave somewhere in Albania. Now, Harry realized, it made sense how "Quirrell" could have come back in Percy Weasley's body.

Voldemort's wand.

But there were still unanswered questions. "You still haven't said what happened after you and Monroe were both mortally wounded in battle with one another," Harry reminded him.

"Ah, yes," Voldemort nodded. "It is important you know this, Mr. Potter, since that knowledge is relevant to the offer I will make you."

"What offer?" Hermione asked, looking back and forth between them.

"Patience, Mrs. Potter," Voldemort told her. "You will hear, soon enough. As I have so far recounted, both Monroe and I were grievously wounded. My heart would not last much longer, and he was bleeding out; even though he managed to slow the bleeding with magic, he could not stop it without dittany or specialized potions. But he would die happy, he told me, because I had been stopped.

"Imagine his disappointment, then, when I told him that I would _not_ die, that I had gone further than any other wizard in my quest for immortality. He would not believe me until I told him of Salazar Slytherin's knowledge, knowledge I had gained from the Monster of Slytherin decades earlier. I began to cast a spell that would draw his life from his body and use it to heal my own damaged form.

"Monroe fought me, even then," Voldemort told them. "He held onto life longer than I would have thought possible. I began to fear that my heart would give out before I would be able to heal it. Then Monroe did something that surprised both of us.

"'Riddle, you foul, Dark creature,'" he said to me, "'what will a spell of Light do to your Horcrux?!'" He cast his Patronus, an eagle that flew directly at me, as if I were a Dementor to be repelled by its form. I held up my wand to defend myself, but the Patronus flew into it and disappeared. At that same moment Monroe's life slipped from his body into me, and my heart was restored.

"But something else had happened to me. It was as if my and Monroe's minds had merged, like mutual Legilimency run amok. Everything he knew, I knew as well. We had become one person."

"That's unbelievable," Harry said. "It's _really_ unbelievable! Patronuses can't do that! They're under the control of the person who cast them — they can't be constrained or held against the caster's will!"

"Have you ever cast your Patronus into an object that's had the Horcrux Ritual performed on it?" Voldemort asked. Harry didn't answer. "No, I'm sure you haven't, Mr. Potter. You've only ever used your Patronus on Dementors, haven't you?"

"You would know that," Harry growled. "You saw me destroy one."

Voldemort nodded. "I suppose in a way I should be grateful for that, Mr. Potter, for that Dementor did tell me that it would hunt me down someday, for depriving it of its sustenance — you."

Harry snorted laughter. He had never heard a Dementor speak — not even the one at Hermione's trial that Harry had used to show the Wizengamot that he could scare a Dementor into retreating from him. They couldn't speak—what wizards thought they heard were words plucked from their own minds by the fear and despair induced by the Dementor's presence.

It occurred to Harry that he _really should have_ destroyed all of the Dementors at Azkaban before now, because he had managed to deduce what Voldemort planned to offer him. "You want me to send my Patronus into your wand," he said, flatly. "To join to you like Monroe did."

Voldemort nodded. "Very good, Mr. Potter — I wasn't certain you were keeping up. It would be quite advantageous to have a perfect memory, and our overall intelligence would not decrease very much; both Monroe and I were quite brilliant, and even at half your intelligence you have a keen and agile mind."

"Harry," Hermione said quietly, though he could hear the tenseness in her voice. "Tell me you are not thinking of doing anything of the sort."

Harry was frowning. "What about Ginny?" he asked. "What can you do for her?" Hermione's mouth fell open.

Voldemort was shaking his head slowly. "Three murders, Mr. Potter. And of three _Aurors_. It will be impossible to manipulate the Ministry to ignore those three deaths. Ginny could just as easily be guilty of Monroe's death, and of trying to kill you as well, if you decide to join with me. Draco can remain the Head Auror for a while longer, and your considerable wealth can be used to, shall we say, direct policies advantageous to the pureblood families of the Wizengamot and the Wizarding community."

"Hermione will remain as Minister of Magic?" Harry asked.

"There will be no reason for her to resign as long as you are willing to cooperate with me — with us."

"You and Monroe?" Harry said, for clarification.

"_And_ Quirrell," Voldemort added. "Did you not wonder at his role in my return?"

Harry shrugged. "I thought you had simply taken over his body as some point before you arrived at Hogwarts, like you did Ginny's."

"Quirrell," Voldemort informed them, "was quite interested in the Dark Lord's exploits, especially what happened to him after he attempted to kill a young Harry Potter and disappeared, seemingly destroyed. He suspected, as few wizards did, that the Dark Lord had found a way to tie himself to the physical world. His investigations eventually led him to Godric's Hollow and the remains of the Potter house. The burst of magic that had incinerated the Dark Lord's body had also broken the Fidelius, and his remains had been removed, but his wand had never been found — it was assumed destroyed by the same power that reduced him to a burnt corpse.

"But Quirrell believed otherwise, fortunately," Voldemort went on. He searched the ruins of the Potter home _very_ carefully, and found the wand buried beneath the remains of a wall that had toppled over on it."

"And you rewarded him by possessing his body," Harry muttered.

"I rewarded him by giving him the option of joining with me," Voldemort demurred. "An offer which he accepted eagerly."

"But Quirrell couldn't produce a Patronus," Hermione objected.

"Of course he could," Voldemort replied shortly. "When you met him we had already been joined for some time; he knew better than to admit he could produce a Patronus. Now," and Voldemort's gaze returned to Harry, "are you willing to join yourself to me, Mr. Potter, so that we can continue to improve Wizarding Britain?"

Harry sat silent for nearly a minute before holding out his hand. "I'll need a wand to produce a Patronus," he said, quietly. Hermione caught her breath, not believing what she was seeing.

"Of course," Voldemort said. He reversed his wand so the handle was toward Harry, holding it out toward him. Harry's hand moved toward the wand…then stopped. He withdrew his hand, looking at Voldemort's wand.

"I don't think I'm going to touch your wand," he said, shaking his head. "I suspect that you would be able to exert a lot of influence over me once I did."

"Your suspicions are warranted," Voldemort nodded, withdrawing the wand. "But I have my own suspicions, and putting any wand in your hand other than mine would be a powerful incentive for you to try and escape your current predicament."

That was true. Harry had seen Voldemort's offer as a way to get his hands on a wand and make a break for it. If the Dark Lord hadn't held out his own wand, it would have been the perfect opportunity — he would have had to reach for another wand while Harry would have one in hand. But Harry couldn't take a chance that he could resist the influence the Horcrux wand could have over him.

"I suppose I have to refuse your offer, then," Harry said. "Even though it means Ginny and I will go to Azkaban." He turned to his wife. "You're going to have to be strong, Hermione. You have to find a way to remain Minister of Magic after all this goes down, _don't_ let Draco Malfoy take over —" His voice cut off suddenly as Voldemort gestured toward him.

"Enough of that, Mr. Potter," the Dark Lord ordered. "In any event, she won't remember any of this conversation, so anything you say here will be moot."

Hermione began to speak but she suddenly slumped in her chair, asleep. "It is too bad you continue to resist me, Mr. Potter — we could have been a formidable opponent with your abilities added to our own. You were merely lucky before —"

"Twice before," Harry reminded him. "I beat you at the end of my first year and again just before I left Hogwarts." He shook his head sadly. "All the things you were capable of back then — it's a shame you remained a Dark wizard. You know, I never found that spell you said Monroe taught you, the one…"

Harry stopped. A number of disparate memories were coming together in his brain. If Voldemort could move his consciousness between a body and one of his Horcruxes…

"Pioneer 11," Harry said suddenly, his voice a near-whisper. "You told me you snuck into NASA and cast a spell on the golden plaque that would make

it last a lot longer than it otherwise would. You performed the Horcrux Ritual on it!"

Voldemort was actually grinning. "I had already created three Horcruxes by then, but the idea that my consciousness would move outward into space, forever, was too enticing to ignore."

"And that spell —" Harry prompted, dreading the answer. "The spell that showed the stars…"

"An alternate form of possession," Voldemort replied. "One in which I allowed you to see through my senses rather than me taking over your mind. That was what was so draining, Mr. Potter — not the movement between my mind and the Plaque Horcrux."

Harry shuddered. "I can't believe I actually enjoyed that — that _aberration_."

"I have learned from _my_ aberrations, Mr. Potter," the Dark Lord replied. "A pity you have not." He waved his wand at Harry. Everything faded to black.

=ooo=

The Most Ancient Hall of the Wizengamot was filled well past its capacity. Many more wizards that those fifty or so souls who were its Lords and Ladies had found their way into that Most August Place. Wizards from across Britain, Europe, and even Scandinavia and Asia Minor had made the trek to that most ancient repository of magical power. They came because something unique was about to occur — today the Wizengamot would humble one of their own number, give him over to the horrors of Azkaban. To be sure, this was not the first time this had happened to one of the nobles of the Wizengamot. But it was the first time anyone had seen Harry Potter brought so low.

Testimony had been given, under Veritaserum, and the Wizengamot was currently "discussing" the idea of placing the arguably most well-known person in Wizarding Britain in the very place he had once threatened to destroy. For some there the irony was delicious. For others it was unthinkable. But soon, it would be decided one way or the other.

The Hall was now filled with the noise of a hundred muttered conversations, in a dozen different languages. The only person in the Hall who _wasn't_ speaking, it seemed, was the man hunched in the iron chair in the center of the room, chains wrapped around his arms and legs. He sat, staring straight ahead, eyes focused on nothing, contemplating the confession he had just given the Wizengamot. He believed everything he had said, as alien as it had sounded as he'd said it. He had killed James Monroe in a cold, jealous rage after learning that he and Ginny Thomas planned to run away together, that she was leaving Britain after killing three Aurors who had come to her home searching for information on Harry Potter. She had been protecting Harry, she'd said during her own trial, all of which Harry also believed, though he could not quite wrap his head around the idea that Ginny would _kill_ three Aurors.

The _other_ person in the Hall who wasn't engaged in deliberation or debate, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, stared down at Harry with sad, tired eyes. In contrast to Harry, he disbelieved everything that the Head Auror (and now acting Minister of Magic) had claimed about Harry and the Thomas woman, who was already on her way to Azkaban, having been roundly convicted of the charges that had been leveled against her. Neither of these trials rang true to the Chief Warlock, but the defendants had been questioned under Veritaserum and had confessed to their crimes. The Wizengamot had voted to convict Ginny Thomas, and they would shortly convict Harry Potter of murder. It mattered not what the Chief Warlock believed about either of them or the likelihood that they had actually committed the crimes they were accused of and had confessed to. Never mind that Veritaserum was ineffective against False Memory Charms and Obliviation when the memories altered or removed did not introduce noticeable inconsistency in the witness's story.

It was time. The Chief Warlock tapped the dark stone rod held in his hand against the podium, silencing the Hall. "I call for the vote," he said in a strong, clear voice that belied his internal turmoil. "By a show of hands, those who believe Harry Potter to be guilty of murder."

Too many hands rose in the air, the Chief Warlock saw. But that was a foregone conclusion. Harry himself had confessed to the murder, and Ginny Thomas's testimony as an eye witness had confirmed it. When the vote was tallied, only one or two of the members had not raised their hands. "By a show of hands," the Chief Warlock continued, "those who believe Harry Potter to be innocent of the charge of murder."

No plum-colored sleeves rose into the air. After an interminable silence, the Chief Warlock spoke once again. "The vote of guilty is carried by majority. Thus orders the Wizengamot. The sentence of life in Azkaban shall be carried out immediately. Aurors, please escort the prisoner out and remand him to the warden of Azkaban. Having no other business to conduct, this session of the Wizengamot is hereby adjourned."

The Aurors guarding Harry removed the chains from his arms and legs and helped him to his feet. He moved slowly, the Chief Warlock saw, and looked weaker than when they were last together, in happier times. As the Aurors took Harry's arms to help him walk he looked up toward the Chief Warlock with a wan smile. "Nice to see you again, Remus," he said, softly. "Even if the circumstances are less than pleasant."

Remus Lupin nodded, his lips pressed tightly together. He could not speak. There was nothing he could say to Harry that could convey the anguish he felt at sending the son of his dearest friends to prison for a crime he wouldn't have, _couldn't_ have committed.

As the Aurors led him away, Harry looked back over his shoulder. "Don't be such a stranger," he murmured, then let the Aurors lead him from the room.

**A/N: Harry's in a serious fix now, isn't he? Well, sometimes the bad guy wins… Reviews, comments, questions invited.**


	25. A Serious Situation

**Chapter Twenty-Five  
><strong>**A Serious Situation**

_Updated_ 2/22/2013  
><em>Last Update<em> 3/15/2013

=ooo=

Harry longed for death.

It wasn't exactly true that he wanted to _die_. There were things he still wanted to see accomplished in his lifetime. He still wanted to bring about the Magical Singularity, he still wanted to live forever, and make it possible for everyone else to do so, too, Muggle and wizard alike. But those goals seemed so very, very far away and unreal now, considering where he was.

Azkaban Prison.

Almost every positive thought one had in Azkaban seemed unreal, because they tended to slip away from you, drained from your mind and your memories. The only way to keep such thoughts, Harry had found, was not to dwell on them as _happy_ thoughts. Happy thoughts tended to disappear almost as soon as they formed, and the only things you were left with were the loss of the happiness and the hole in your memory.

Harry kept those thoughts in his head by thinking of them as hardships, things he had failed to achieve in his life. As failed goals they brought him no comfort, and the _Dementors_ allowed those thoughts to remain inside him.

Harry was lying on his back on the dirty, ragged camp bed was the sole furnishing of his cell. There was no mattress — Harry lay directly on the rough canvas of the bed itself. He'd also been given two small blankets, neither of which was adequate against the coldness of the cell, which seeped through the walls from the freezing cold wind and rain that seemed to continually bombard the prison itself; if you put your ear against the wall of the cell you could hear the sound pounding against the outside walls of the prison. His stomach was rumbling; the near-inadequate amounts of food they were given seemed to come at irregular intervals. That, or Harry was no longer any good at estimating how much time passed between meals. Most meals consisted of a small portion of bread, a cup of broth with maybe a scrap or two of meat or vegetables in it, or on days when the guards were particularly hungry themselves, a bit of soup. There was usually a bowl of water with the meal, but one could not count on the bowl being filled; sometimes there was less than half a bowlful of water. The guards also provided another bowlful of water, alternating with the meal, and those times the water bowls were usually full. It was the only two interactions Harry ever had with the guards. The rest of the time you were left alone with the Dementors. And conditions in the prison these days were considered more humane than they had been in a long time! Ironically, they had been instituted by Harry's wife, Hermione, after she had become Minister of Magic. She had tried to get the prison shut down, and failed. She had tried to have the Dementors removed from the prison, and failed, though she had gotten the prisoners some respite: the Dementors were now required to remain at the base of the prison unless they needed to interact with the Aurors guarding the prisoners. The prisoners themselves (those who were still alive) had been relocated higher up in the intertwining spirals that made up the levels of the prison. It lessened, but did not remove, the deteriorating effect the Dementors had on them. Finally, Hermione had worked to improve conditions in the prison: making sure the prisoners were fed daily instead of whenever their families managed to bribe the guards into bringing them food; having beds placed in the cells instead of requiring the prisoners to sleep on the metal floor of their cells; and there were now small windows between adjoining cells, so prisoners could communicate with each other if they so wished. It was quite civilized these days, in fact, staying in Azkaban prison. There was a metal toilet along one wall that flushed automatically after use. On the opposite wall was a small metal sink jutting out from the wall, with a single faucet that dispensed a trickle of water. Somewhere under his cot was a small square hole in the wall that provided ventilation and air for heat, but the air was cold more often than not.

There were no visitors. The guards themselves generally stayed in their area, protected from the Dementors by their Patronuses. They would come around twice a day to pass out the food and water, but they didn't remain long. They rarely spoke directly to prisoners. The only guard that had spoken to Harry was the one that had put him in his cell. Now, other than the occasional guard's hand that would slip his tray of food or bowl of water through the small trap door at the bottom of his cell door, or the rats that would sometimes dart furtively along the walls of his cell, scavenging for food, he saw no one.

Harry did not know how long he'd been in Azkaban. They had brought him here from the Ministry after his trial and placed him in this cell, and here he had been since then. There was no way to tell time. The meal and the water came, but Harry had lost count of how many times he'd been fed; in fact he could not always force himself to eat or drink. His body tended to make those decisions for him these days. He ate when his body demanded it; otherwise he did not seem to care whether he was fed or not.

And it was only while he ate that his thoughts moved beyond his own miseries. Ginny was in Azkaban, too, somewhere. She probably did not even understand why she was here, other than because of the memories she had of killing three Aurors in cold blood, something Harry had never come to grips over, any more than he understood what had possessed him to murder James Monroe. Hermione, his wife, had been spared Azkaban, but she had resigned in the aftermath of the charges against him, charges that had caused her to undergo a mental breakdown. Where she was now, Harry did not know. It did not matter; he would never see her again.

Recently someone had been moved into the cell next to him, a person Harry had not yet seen. Harry did not remember him being there when he first arrived, but neither did he recall when the prisoner had been put in there. The window between the cell was small, only a few inches on each side, and an iron grate covered both sides of the window, which was perhaps three or four inches deep. Harry had even spoken through the window, trying to get a response out of his "neighbor," but no one had answered him.

And there was…something else that was with him in his cell. Not always, nor did it appear very often, but Harry never looked forward to its arrival.

It was "the Voice."

When Harry had been younger, much younger, he'd acquired a habit of forming "subpersonalities" in his mind. These different parts of his personality would debate his thoughts and plans in order to test their viability and soundness. It wasn't until he started attending Hogwarts, however, that he actually began naming them. His Internal Consistency Checker had been around for quite some time before he'd gone to Hogwarts, as had his Internal Critic, but he'd only named them after he'd found his four House personalities, his Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin and Ravenclaw sides, who had emerged after his talk with the Sorting Hat. Over time, Harry had integrated those parts of him back into his own mind, where if they spoke at all any more, it was in his own voice.

But the Voice was something he couldn't seem to control. It spoke whether he wanted to hear it or not. How long had he been here before it had appeared, whispering in his head? Harry couldn't say. It came and went; he had heard it only a few times, but those times had been unnerving. Was it a sign Harry was going mad? That was something he was afraid of, that the Dementors were draining his sanity as well as his happiness. He remembered, when he'd been here before with Professor Quirrell, hearing screams of pain, moans of agony and desperation, and it had torn at him like claws ripping at his heart. There had been nothing he could do then, though he'd _almost_ had the opportunity to return and destroy the Dementors who caused all this misery, this suffering. But he had not been quite ready then, and he hadn't understood that the phoenix who'd offered its assistance _wasn't_ Fawkes. It had been _his_ phoenix, it had come to _him_. And he had sent it away, not understanding what he was doing and that he would never be given a second chance. That was not a happy thought, either, so it remained with him, gnawing at his soul.

But that was assuming he _had_ a soul, which it seemed was not the case, from what he'd learned before coming here. The thing was, it wasn't any more comfort thinking it was merely gnawing at his mind.

Time passed. Food arrived, and Harry picked half-heartedly at it, chewing mechanically on the stale bread, sipping at the nearly tasteless broth. He drank the bowl of water, of course, because water was a more fundamental need than stale bread and tasteless broth. He no longer bothered to count how many times he had eaten, because it didn't really matter anymore; he was never getting out of here.

Every so often he heard movement in the cell next to him. Once he even got up from his cot, shuffled over to the small window connecting the cells, and tried to look around the cell next to him. Very little was visible to him; he could see the heavy iron door with a small door at shoulder height that opened from the outside only, so that the guards could look in. The same as with his cell. The Aurors could see the cot where he normally spent most of his day. The window in the cell wall, however, showed very little else. He could see some of the far wall of the adjacent cell, but not much of the floor or anything else. He had spoken into the window a few times, but if there was anyone over there they never replied. Harry had considered splashing some of his broth through the window, to see what would happen, but he hadn't done that yet. It just wasn't that important to him.

=ooo=

"_Harry_."

Harry's eyes opened. He recognized that whisper. The Voice was back.

He was lying on his back on the camp bed. He glanced at the window in the cell door, to make sure a guard hadn't spoken to him. The window was closed. He closed his eyes again, sighing. He didn't want to talk with the Voice right now. It tended to say annoying things to him. He didn't like that. That was probably why the Dementors hadn't sucked it out of his mind.

"_Harry, can you hear me_?"

"Of course I can hear you," Harry muttered. He had answered silently in the past, in his mind's stream of consciousness, but the Voice pretended not to hear him unless he spoke aloud. One of its annoying habits. "What do you want?"

"_Just to see how you've been doing lately, Harry_. _We haven't talked in a while_."

"It's been brilliant, just brilliant," Harry growled.

"_Well, you've no one to blame except yourself, you know_," the Voice whispered. "_After all, _you're_ the one who murdered James Monroe_."

"You don't need to remind me," Harry snapped. That fact was burned indelibly into his brain, though he couldn't remember _why_ he'd killed Monroe. He had to assume it had been a happy thought, though, and that the Dementors had taken it away from him. He desperately wanted to remember why he done what he did. "But why don't you remind me _why_ I did it."

"_It's not up to me to tell you what you already know_," the Voice said, infuriatingly. "_But otherwise, how are you getting on_? _Mental faculties still functioning_?"

"It's not up to me to tell you what you already know," Harry replied, mockingly. "You're supposed to be in my head. You tell me."

"_It will do you good to tell _yourself_ how you feel_," the Voice said, coaxingly.

"Will it?" Harry sneered. "Somehow I don't think so."

"_You're being difficult about this, but you know you have only yourself to blame for your situation_."

"Maybe," Harry retorted. "But I can imagine Draco Malfoy having a hand in this. He stepped right into the Minister of Magic position when Hermione resigned. It wouldn't surprise me if he had something to do with Monroe's murder and it got pinned on me."

"_You confessed to the crime, Harry_."

"False Memory Charm, I'd wager," Harry replied. "It wouldn't be the first time someone's tried that on me. The problem is, it may have worked this time."

"_There is no way for you to prove that_."

"I concede that," Harry admitted. "Short of a confession by Malfoy himself, and I'd need some pretty strong leverage to get something like _that_ out of him."

"_You would_," the Voice agreed. "_Even if he did do something like that, Malfoy would have no practical reason to admit such a crime_. _You have to be realistic with yourself about such things, Harry_."

"Not that it matters," Harry said, resignedly. "I'm in here for life — there's no chance I'll be pardoned without buying off the majority of the Wizengamot, and some of them would cheerfully take my bribe and vote against a pardon anyway."

"_You haven't really been considering something like that_?" the Voice asked.

It was a strange question for him to ask himself, Harry thought, but he'd probably asked himself weirder questions over the past few decades. "No, not really," he said. "Hermione wouldn't go for it, even if it had the least chance of getting me out of here. At least I made sure she was set up before all this came crashing down on top of me."

"_And how's that_?"

Another strange question. "There's a vault in Gringotts that I filled with Galleons over the years. I gave her the backup key so she has access to it."

"_Good thing you were thinking ahead_," the Voice agreed. "_How much do you estimate is in that vault_?"

"Enough to last her quite some time," Harry said, a hint of irritation in his voice. "What difference does it make to _you_, Jiminy Cricket? I thought you were here to point out my failures as a wizard, not my successes."

"_I'm not here to do either_," the Voice said, patiently, though its voice seemed louder in his head. "_I'm just trying to get you to face reality_."

"The reality is, my life is going to stink for the foreseeable future," Harry said, loudly. "I don't _need_ reality, I need a comforting fiction that the damned Dementors can't suck out of me!"

"_You're getting frustrated_," the voice said, soothingly. "_Perhaps we should talk later_."

"Wait a minute," Harry said, but the Voice didn't answer. "Crap!" he swore.

"Who are you talking to?" another voice suddenly asked. Harry looked around; the cell door was closed, but he could see a shadow in the window between his cell and the one adjacent to his, on the right.

"Nobody," Harry said, shortly. "Just talking to myself."

"If you say so," the prisoner in the next cell said. His voice was a wheezy rasp, barely above a whisper. "That's the most I've heard you talk since they moved me here."

Harry grunted, whether in assent or indifference he wasn't sure. "First time I've heard _you_ talk since ever," he finally said. "How come you've never answered me when I asked who's over there?"

"Sorry," the voice wheezed. "I sleep a lot. There's not much else to do."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. He rolled into a sitting position on the cot. "How long have you been in that cell?"

"Dunno," the prisoner replied. Harry could see movement in the window between their cells — the man had moved over to speak through it. "Say, are you _sure_ there wasn't someone in there with you?"

Harry looked around the cell. "No…" he said, slowly. "They only allow one prisoner per cell. Why do you ask that?"

"Something familiar," the prisoner mumbled. "Thought I…well, never mind. I guess my mind's playing tricks on me again. Sorry." He started to move away from the window.

"Hey," Harry called, though his own voice sounded dry and cracked; he hadn't spoken above a whisper in a long time. "Do you have a name? Something I can call you?"

"Um," the prisoner seemed to be thinking. Harry knew that people who'd been in Azkaban a long time sometimes forgot who they were. "I guess I'm Black."

"Okay," Harry said, wondering why the man would identify himself by his skin color. "I'm Harry."

The man barked a laugh. "Me too!" he said. "It's been a while since I've seen a razor or clippers!"

Harry smiled, but he felt the moment of levity draining away. "Is there anything I can call you other than black?" he asked.

"Black's my name," the man repeated. "I'm Sirius."

"Okay, if you insist," Harry muttered. He wasn't trying to start a fight with the guy. "I just thought we could call each other something than 'hey, you'."

"Fine," the man said, sounding short. "You're Harry and I'm Sirius Black."

Oh. _Oh_! OH!

"Wait a minute," Harry said, getting to his feet. He walked over to the window and peered at the man through two layers of iron grating. The man had a wild tangle of black hair on his head, and a full black beard. "_You_ are Sirius Black?"

"Yeah," the man was frowning at Harry through the grates. "What's that to you? Do you know who I am? You don't look old enough to have been alive when I landed in here."

"I know who you are," Harry said tightly, his anger growing as he remembered. "You betrayed James and Lily Potter to Voldemort, and he killed them!"

"You don't know anything about it!" Black growled.

"I know enough!" Harry shouted back. Both of their faces were pressed against the iron grates of the window that separated them. "You not only betrayed the Potters, but you also killed the man who turned you in to the Ministry, Peter Pettigrew! They found you ankle-deep in his blood and the blood of twelve other people you killed when you murdered him!"

Black was breathing heavily on the other side of the window. "Kid, you've got it all wrong," he said through gritted teeth. "But that's not surprising — the Ministry never gave me a chance to present my side of the case. If you knew what _really_ happened…"

"So why don't you tell me, then?" Harry challenged him.

Black snorted derision. "What for? It sounds like your mind's made up. And what the hell difference would it make, anyway? I'm still here and they'll never let me out, or give me a chance to clear myself." He shook his head. "It's been so long I'm not even sure what the truth is anymore."

"The truth would be important for me to know," Harry said, his voice tight.

"Why?" Black growled. "What do _you_ care? What interest could you possibly have in something that happened so long ago?"

"I told you my name was Harry," Harry said, staring at Black through the window in the wall between them. "My last name when that happened was Potter — I was James and Lily Potter's son."

Black was silent for a long moment. Harry could hear him inhaling, exhaling on the other side of the window. Finally, "Bloody hell, Harry, it _is_ you! What the hell are you doing in Azkaban?!"

Harry waved off the question. "Not what we're talking about right now. If you've got something to say about what happened with my parents back then, let's hear it."

"Holy shit," Black was muttering to himself. "I can't believe I've finally met you again after all these years, Harry! I remember playing with you when you were —"

"I don't need to hear about that," Harry cut him off. "First tell me your side of the story. If it doesn't sound like nonsense we can go from there."

"Okay, okay." Black sighed, a long, slow exhalation. "Let's see. It was October of 1981 and James and Lily had just escaped a Death Eater attack in London. It was rumored that Voldemort was waiting for them to be brought to him so he could personally execute them.

"Me and Moony —" Black stopped for a moment. "Er, 'Moony' was a nickname for Remus Lupin, a friend of James and mine —"

"I know who he is," Harry interjected. "He's the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot now."

"No shit?" Black actually chuckled for a moment. "Wonder why he's never come to visit me in here?"

"Because he thinks you betrayed James and Lily Potter, like everyone else does," Harry replied, coldly.

"Well, shit," Black muttered. "Okay, anyway, we were kicking around ideas to try and keep James, Lily and you safe, and we came up with the Fidelius Charm. It's a bugger to cast properly, but if you do it's an almost foolproof method of keeping yourself hidden. Almost," he added bitterly.

"I know about the Fidelius," Harry said. "It's not in any of the official stories about you, but Lupin told me about it."

"Stories about me?" Black sounded surprised. "What do they say about me?"

"That when the Aurors tracked you down they found you in a London street with blood splattered all around you, and eyewitnesses confirming that you had blown up Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggles."

"Ha," Black said, humorlessly. "I didn't blow him up, but I wondered why he did it to himself; if Voldemort was gone he was in the clear — all he had to do was get out of Britain and hide from the Death Eaters. From the damage to James and Lily's house I was surprised that _you_ had survived, but that's where I found you."

"_You_ found me in my parents' house?" Harry said, skeptically. "Nobody's ever told me _that_."

"It's true enough," Black insisted. "I was supposed to be the Secret Keeper, remember? But then I turned into a bloody idiot — that's what cost your parents their lives."

"What did you do?" Harry demanded, his voice rising.

"I switched with Peter. _He_ was the Secret Keeper."

"I've never heard _that_, either," Harry said. "Peter Pettigrew wasn't much of a wizard, from what Remus and others have told me. You were supposed to be a pretty good fighter back then. Why would you make Peter the Secret Keeper?"

"Harry, that was the _point_," Black said earnestly. "Nobody would think that Peter was the real Secret Keeper. Everybody would think it was _me_, and the Death Eaters would come for me, not him!

"But it turned out Peter was a rat," Black continued, his voice thick with hate. "That little fucker had become a Death Eater — Voldemort was looking a way to get closer to James and Lily — and I mucked things up by having James make him the Secret Keeper instead of me!"

"But you've must've known the secret, too," Harry guessed.

"Yes, of course," Black agreed, "but only the Secret Keeper can tell the secret to anyone else, and Peter went running to Voldemort with the news of where James and Lily were." Black pounded a fist against the wall; it rang throughout Harry's cell as well. "I showed up too late to do anything — the house was in shambles but the Fidelius was still in effect. I went in, looking around, and found their — their bodies." For the first time Black's voice broke. "It was my fault. _My fault_! If I hadn't been trying to be so clever Pettigrew would never have had the secret and your parents would have lived! Merlin, Harry, I'm so sorry!" He moved away from the window; Harry could hear him walking back and forth, like a man trying to figure out what he should do next.

After a minute or so he moved back toward the window. "I found you, Harry, with that cut on your forehead. It hadn't bled much, which should have meant something to me then but I was so relieved to find you alive. I got you bundled up and got you out of there. I didn't know what to do." He was babbling, Harry realized. "I sat there on the front porch, trying to figure out what I was going to do next, when Hagrid showed up."

"Hagrid?" Harry hadn't thought about _him_ in a long time. "The groundskeeper at the school? Why would he show up at my parents' house?"

"He said Dumbledore sent him," Sirius answered. "He was wandering around in front of the ruins of James and Lily's home, looking confused, and I realized he couldn't see me because I was still within the Fidelius. When I went out to talk to him he said he was supposed to come check up on James and Lily. He was devastated when I told him they'd been killed. I had him hold you while I sent a message to Dumbledore telling him James and Lily were dead, but you were still alive, and he sent back one telling me to give you to Hagrid until everything could be straightened out."

Sirius turned away from the window. "I even gave Hagrid my motorcycle!" he said, "so he wouldn't have to use the Portkey Dumbledore had given him. He took you, got on my bike and flew off, leaving me to wonder just how deep the shit I was in was. If Dumbledore thought I was the Secret Keeper, how could I explain to him and the Order what had really happened? "

"Dumbledore _knew_ about the Fidelius?" Harry asked, more sharply than he'd intended. The old wizard had never mentioned anything about it to Harry that he could remember.

"Yeah," Sirius nodded through the window. "_He_ wanted to be the one to cast the Fidelius. He could be a nosy old bastard sometime." Sirius's tone was not unkind. "But James and I talked it over and decided we would keep it amongst ourselves. Moony — Remus — had taught the spell to James, and he cast it the day before Halloween. I left the house after that, and so did Peter, and I thought that would be them safely hidden."

"Wait a minute," Harry cut in. "Did Remus know the Secret Keeper ended up being Pettigrew rather than you?"

"No," Sirius said, his voice bitter once again. "Another bit of cleverness on my part. I suggested James cast it before Remus showed up, to get the spell in place as quickly as possible, and that Peter could tell Remus afterwards.

"What I didn't know was that when Pettigrew left, instead of finding Remus he went directly to Voldemort and ratted James and Lily out. Voldemort waited until the following night to show up in Godric's Hollow to —" Sirius's voice cut off.

"Okay," Harry said, quietly. He was leaning forearms against the wall, his head bowed. He didn't know Sirius Black, but the man's misery and sadness felt genuine, and the story made sense. For the most part. "But if the Fidelius was still active," he questioned. "how did anyone else get in the house if Peter was killed?"

"Because right after the attack he went to the Ministry to tell them what happened," Sirius spat. "Or what he _wanted_ them to believe, actually. The Aurors who brought me in told me about it on the way to the Wizengamot. Peter walked in the Head Auror's office and told him he suspected I had betrayed James and Lily Potter, _who were at their home in Godric's Hollow_ — you see how he worked around revealing he was the Secret Keeper, eh?" Sirius's voice was thick with rage again.

"Why didn't you tell them you weren't the Secret Keeper, then?" Harry asked.

"I tried that, but they decided I was _refusing_ to tell them!" Sirius exploded. "To make it more difficult for them to investigate! I even suggested they use Veritaserum on me, and they refused! They were bound and determined to ignore everything I told them, the damned idiots!"

"So they brought you before the Wizengamot…" Harry prompted.

"Yeah. Probably the quickest trial in Wizengamot history," Sirius said. "If you could even call it a trial. Dumbledore was looking at me like I'd kicked his dog. The Aurors presented their evidence of picking me up in London covered in Pettigrew's blood, and it was a unanimous conviction after that. They might just as well have sent me to Azkaban _without_ a vote, it was such a foregone conclusion."

"And you've been here since then," Harry said, shaking his head in sympathy. "At least 35 years now. How could you have survived that long?"

Sirius laughed, a guttural barking sound. "I guess I'm just a tough old son of a bitch."

Harry was going over what he knew about Sirius Black from the books he'd read as a kid. It was all a bit jumbled in his head, but: "There was a rumor at one time," he said, "that suggested you, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew became unregistered Animagi while you were at Hogwarts."

"Oh?" Black snorted. "Why would we do that, assuming we could even figure out how?"

Harry couldn't remember what he'd read about that. "I don't know. _Are_ you an Animagus?"

Black barked a laugh. "If I was, Harry, I think I'd have figured a way out of here a long time ago!"

"Hmmm." Harry pondered a moment. "What about Pettigrew? Or James Potter?"

"James was my best friend from the day I first met him, Harry, on the Hogwarts Express," Sirius said. "I think I would have known if he'd managed to become an Animagus. And Pettigrew? That's a laugh! All he ever did was follow me and James around, trying to hang out with the cool Gryffindors. We let him, mostly because he'd do anything we told him to."

"There was another rumor," Harry went on, remembering more and more about the details. "That Pettigrew _didn't_ die on that street in London. That he escaped, somehow, and ended up becoming a pet for the Weasleys."

"I know the Weasley family," Sirius said. "We're distantly related. But Pettigrew never became an Animagus, so if they ever owned a pet rat it wasn't Peter. Merlin knows I've had more rats in _here_ than I care to remember."

"You mean as pets?" Harry asked, surprised at the idea.

"No, as lunch," Sirius replied. "Back when I first came here they didn't feed us much, and the rats made pretty decent snacks, considering the alternative."

"That's awful," Harry groaned, sickened at the idea.

"You asked how I survived, Harry," Sirius reminded him. "I did what I had to do to get by."

"But if you'd been smart," Harry said, remembering something he'd pondered long ago, "you would have run once you realized you were the prime suspect for betraying James and Lily, instead of going after Pettigrew."

"I didn't see it like that," Sirius disagreed. "_I_ was innocent, as far as I was concerned. I figured I would find Peter and force him to go to the Ministry with me and explain the real situation to them. I didn't expect him to do what he did when I finally found him. Even now I'm still not sure what really happened."

"Well, either _you_ blew him up or he blew himself up," Harry replied. "But I could never work out why you went after him in the first place. You _should_ have gotten the hell out of Britain as fast as you could, whether you betrayed the Potters or not."

Sirius sighed again. "Yeah, I hadn't quite worked things out myself before I found Peter. I had some idea I was going to turn him over to the Aurors, but not before I worked him over a bit — he'd killed my _best friends_, Harry! I wanted to kick his arse all the way from London to Godric's Hollow! But when I found him he shouted that he'd already told the Aurors about me and that I wouldn't get away with betraying James and Lily, then everything blew up — literally. The only thing left of him they found was a bit of one finger. And there I was, left holding the bag for thirteen murders, including the bloke I'd gone to capture. It was so stupid I couldn't do anything _but_ laugh — laugh at my own stupidity. By the time I stopped laughing the Aurors had me pegged as the murderer of Pettigrew and the betrayer of James and Lily to Voldemort, and what the Aurors believed in those days was as good as the word of Merlin himself."

His voice was beginning to sound tired. "Look, Harry… I need to rest for a while. And I'm sorry you've ended up here, but maybe we can make the best of it, somehow."

That was almost funny, Harry thought. "We'll see," he said, noncommittally. "I'm going to rest for a while, too — wait for dinner to be served," he added in an ironic tone. "I'll talk to you later, Sirius." He slouched back over to his cot and rolled tiredly into it, his face to the metal wall next to his bed. Now that he was alone with his thoughts again, he could feel the Dementors draining him, drawing out his happiness and his magic. And this is the way it would be for the rest of his life. Harry closed his eyes, shuddering, and once again wished for death, sort of.

The sound of the trap door closing brought his eyes open again. After a while Harry rolled over, seeing the tray of food on the floor in front of the door. A while later he pulled himself into a sitting position on the cot, then slowly rose and walked over to get the tray. The food bowl was only half-full this time; Harry sniffed it, smelling beef broth and vegetables. A watery stew, then. He frowned at the half portion, but carried it back to his cot and began to spoon it into his mouth. When it was mostly gone he used the piece of bread on the tray to sop out the bowl. He drank the water, putting the empty bowl in the sink and turning the faucet on to start a trickle of water filling the bowl. Hopefully it would be full by the time the guard came for the tray, and Harry could drink the water before giving up the bowl. He put the tray on the floor beside his cot, stretched, then rolled onto his side. He pulled his legs up onto the cot, then found himself drifting back to sleep. Strange, he didn't usually feel this sleepy after eating. Before he could ponder it further, though, Harry was soon snoring.

=ooo=

Harry awoke not feeling rested or refreshed, which certainly wasn't unusual. In Azkaban one nearly _always_ felt tired when awake, so it wasn't unexpected.

What _was_ unexpected was the Auror leaning over him, watching. Harry flinched away from the man, then glanced around the room, looking for other Aurors before he asked, "What?" in a clipped, annoyed tone.

"Wondered when you were going to wake up, Sleeping Beauty," the Auror said, a smirk on his whiskered face. He seemed to be glowing until Harry realized that the Auror's Patronus, a shining silver dog, was sitting behind him. That was the glow the Auror seemed to be emanating. That was a relief, at least — the unhappiness and depression the Dementors generated with their presence was lessened somewhat; the sensation was almost enjoyable in comparison with how Harry normally felt. "Come on," the Auror said shortly, straightening up. "It's Moving Day."

"Moving?" Harry repeated. For a moment the word didn't register. "Why would I move? The cot is fine right where it is."

"No, genius," the Auror growled. "We're moving you to a new cell."

"_Now_? What for?" Harry asked, greatly disappointed by the news. What incredibly lousy timing! He'd just been put next to the one person who might be able to keep him from going insane in here, if only because he wanted to find out all the despicable things Sirius Black had done in the course of getting his parents, Peter Pettigrew, and twelve Muggles killed.

"Don't worry, you're not going very far," the Auror said, jerking a thumb toward Sirius's cell. "We're moving you next door."

"Into _his_ cell?" Harry said, incredulous. This didn't happen in Azkaban, as far as he knew; you just didn't put prisoners in cells together. With the depression and madness that could result from prolonged exposure to Dementors, prisoners could end up maimed or killed by one another. "You're not supposed to do that, are you?"

"Relax," the Auror said, brusquely. He took Harry's arm and hoisted him to his feet. "You're not going in together, he's exchanging cells with you."

"What for?" Harry asked again. "What difference does it make?"

"Because Black wants this cell, and he's been here long enough that we allow him a request every so often." What the Auror didn't say was that a wizard showed up every month or so and left a bag of Galleons with the Auror guards, to make sure that Black was given extra portions of food and water. That had been happening almost since he came into the prison, and the guards at Azkaban didn't mind the extra money that came their way every month to make sure Black didn't have it as rough as some of the other prisoners. If truth be told, it was probably the main reason Black had survived in the wizards' prison for the past 35 years. "Now come on," he said, taking Harry's arm. "We're wasting time standing here."

He tugged at Harry's arm, but Harry held his ground. "I need my blankets," Harry said, reaching down for the two ragged sheets he'd been given when they put him in this cell, but the Auror pulled him upright again.

"Leave them," the Auror warned. "There'll be blankets in your new cell."

The Auror led Harry outside the cell into the corridor beyond, his Patronus going before them. Two other Aurors were standing nearby, their Patronuses, a rabbit and an owl, next to them glowing brightly. The three Patronuses seemed to be generating the only light present in the corridor. And behind the two Aurors, Harry could see the thin, ragged form of Sirius Black himself.

He didn't look too bad, Harry noted, for a man who'd spent 35 years in the most oppressive prison in the world. He was born around the same time as his birth parents, Harry remembered; that put him in his mid-50's. Still in the prime of life for a normal wizard, though the man was by no means normal. His black hair was a tangled mess around his head, going down past his shoulders, and his beard hung over his chest. The robe he wore was old, faded, and tattered, though it couldn't have been what he was wearing when he came into Azkaban — that would have disintegrated long ago. Whoever was bribing the guards must make sure he got a change of clothes every so often.

"What's going on, Sirius?" Harry asked, loudly. "Why are we —"

"No talking," the Auror holding his arm commanded. He pulled Harry in front of the door leading into Sirius's cell. "Get in there," he said, pushing Harry forward.

Harry staggered into the room, then stopped and turned, looking back at the Auror, who was shutting the door to the cell. A few moments late he heard the door to his old cell slam shut as well. He shuffled over to the window between the two cells.

"Sirius, what the hell's going on?" he demanded in annoyance. "They said you wanted to exchange cells. What the hell for?"

But there was no answer. Through the window, he could hear Black repeatedly breathing deeply. "Sirius!" he shouted through the window. Again there was no response.

"Fine!" Harry said, thoroughly annoyed by now. "Don't say anything! But don't expect me to talk to you until you tell me what's going on!"

There was still no reply. Harry thought he meant it — he wasn't going to talk to Black until he found out the reason the man had changed cells with him.

He looked around the cell. The sink and the toilet were on opposite sides of his old cell, but the cot was in the same spot. Underneath he could see the small ventilation hole that let air flow into the room, though it usually made the cell colder than warmer. There were no blankets on the bed, though. Harry groaned inwardly, imagining how cold it would get sometimes, but as he looked around the room he found what Black had done with the blankets: they were in the corner next to where the window between cells was, nearly below it, and were flattened like Black had been lying on them. But why the hell would he lie down in the corner —?

Harry went to the window, trying to see the corresponding corner in his old cell, but there was no way to see the corner from the window. Harry looked back at the door to the cell. It didn't look like an Auror could look through either the trap door or the door view window to see the corner, either.

So if Black laid down in this corner, Harry saw, nobody could see him unless they came into the room. He picked up the blankets, shaking them to remove any dust on them. There were a lot of short black hairs covering the blankets. That was odd, Harry though, especially since Black's hair was shoulder length or longer. Where would the short black hair come from? Harry could think of a rather disgusting example, but that didn't seem to make sense.

"Black!" he yelled, shouting through the window, but there was still no answer from the other side. After calling his name several more times Harry kicked the wall in frustration — not very hard, because the Dementor-imposed depression was upon him once again, then dropped the hair-covered blankets back in the corner and sank onto the cot. He lay there trying to work out what such a pointless move was about, but it really made no sense. Unless… Black was just messing with him, trying to establish some kind of dominance position between them. Like the Auror had said, Black got his way around here, sometimes, because of the time he'd spent in here. Harry wondered if there was something more to it than that…

Thinking about it was getting to be too much bother. Harry rolled onto his side, wrapped his arms around himself, and began the wait for his next meager meal.

=ooo=

Time once again melded into a progression of tasteless food, restless sleep, and crushing depression and hopelessness. It no longer mattered to Harry that Black had taken his cell — what did he care where he was in Azkaban? No matter where you were, the wounds in the world were still there, slowly devouring your life, your soul, your very identity. Harry wondered how he would feel after he'd been here 35 years, _if_ he could even survive that long. How Black had done it was a mystery, even with whatever help he was getting. Harry sometimes wondered, enviously, why he had never planned for such a contingency, on the chance he might end up here someday. That possibility had been remote, of course, but given that he was actually _here_, now, it seemed like he should have taken it more seriously.

How long _would_ he last? Harry had no idea how he'd already been here, but it seemed like years. He had taken to sitting on the edge of his cot, head in hands, trying to remember how many meals he had eaten since he'd come here. He wished he'd thought to make a record, somehow — he could have scratched a mark on the wall for each bowl of gruel he'd been given. But even that wouldn't have helped him now that Black was in his cell and he in his. The only thing he had now was the two tattered blankets that lay in a heap in a corner of the cell.

He'd left them lay there, unused even in the coolness of the cell, until one morning he awakened shivering uncontrollably. It must have gotten particularly cold outside, and the tiny hole that was supposed to deliver warm air to the cell was instead blowing air that felt even colder than the air in the cell.

Harry rose, slowly, and shuffled over to the corner, to gather up the blankets. He turned to walk back to the cot, but decided that it was warmer in the corner where he was. He sank to the floor, pulling the blankets over him, and huddled there for warmth.

After a while he glanced up toward the window between his cell and Black's. Black hadn't spoken to him since they'd switched cells, despite Harry's demands that he speak to him. Black had never answered, and Harry hardly ever heard him move lately, even after their food was delivered. Whatever Black was doing in there, he was making very little noise going about it. Harry pulled the blankets closer around him; this side of the cell seemed slightly warmer than where his cot was; perhaps it was because it was an inside wall he was huddled against. The corridor he'd been in when the Aurors moved him and Black had been less cold than the outside walls. Harry dozed, waiting for the next meal to show up, trying not to think about his increasing depression and despair.

"…"

Harry's eyes fluttered open. Had Black said something or was he merely hearing his own breathing? There was no other sound for several seconds, and Harry closed his eyes again.

"… …"

The sound he thought he'd heard seemed a bit louder that time, but it was still so indistinct that Harry wondered if he'd dreamed it.

"_Harry Potter_."

Harry groaned inwardly. It was the Voice again! _Go away_, he thought. _I don't have time for your shit today— _

"I hear you," another voice whispered, and Harry came immediately awake. That was Black's voice! "What do you want?" he heard Black whisper.

What the _hell_?

How could _Black_ hear the Voice if it was in Harry's head? Harry wanted to jump up and shout through the window, but he dared not move lest Black or the Voice stop talking.

"_I just wanted to see how you are, Harry_," the Voice was low again; Harry had to concentrate just to hear it.

"I'm fine," Black's whispered reply came a few moments later. "In fact, I'm doing better than you THINK!" Black's voice had risen to a shout by the last word. There was a startled gasp and the sound of someone being dragged across the floor. "I _knew_ I smelled you, you miserable little rat!" Black rasped.

Harry heaved himself to his feet and pressed his face against the metal grating of the window, straining to see what Black was doing, but he was still out of view.

Then the Voice spoke again, this time in a normal voice. "S-Sirius! I'm so pleased to see you again! I — I thought you were dead!"

"You _hoped_ I was, you mean," Black snarled.

"Black!" Harry shouted. "What's going on in there?!"

"Harry!" the Voice squeaked. "Harry, you have to explain to him! I'm here to help you, Harry!"

"Oh, that's a bloody likely story!" Black snapped. "You've never helped anyone except yourself, Peter!"

"Peter?" Harry said through the window. "Peter _Pettigrew_? Sirius, who the hell's in there with you?!"

"Who d'you think?" Black said, bitingly. "Yeah, it's Pettigrew! It looks like you were right, Harry — the little rat managed to survive that meeting with me in London back in 1981. And now I see why! You cut off your own goddamned finger, didn't you?"

"Sirius," Peter's voice was shrill and squeaky. "I — I had to! The Death Eaters would have killed me if they found I was the one who —" his voice faltered.

"You were the one who betrayed James and Lily!" Sirius finished for him. "I was there to bring you in! _They_ would have killed you because it looked like you betrayed Voldemort —"

"Ahh! Don't say his name, Sirius!"

"Voldemort Voldemort Voldemort!" Sirius shouted. "Still afraid of a bloody made-up name, are you? _Tell me what you're doing here_!"

"I — I came to see how Harry was doing…"

"_Why_?" both Harry and Sirius asked the question at the same time.

"M-minister Malfoy s-sent me," Peter stammered.

"Who the hell is that?" Sirius demanded. "Wait! Damn! Don't tell me that blond-haired ponce is Minister now!"

"It's his son, Draco," Harry said through the window. "He replaced my wife as Minister just before I was sent here."

"Your _wife_?" Sirius said, surprised. "Harry, you're marr— Oh no you don't!" There was frantic squeaking and Sirius cursed loudly. "Bite me again, you fucking little rat," he said, threateningly, "and I'll snap your bloody neck! Now change back before I do it anyway!"

"I'm sorry!" Peter's voice squeaked pleadingly a few seconds later. "Please don't kill me, Sirius! I'm only doing what I have to do to survive!"

"And what the fuck do you think I've been doing for the past 35 years?" Sirius demanded. "Harry told me it's been that long since they threw me in here. Because of you, Peter, _because of_ YOU!" There was a loud metallic thud as Black slammed Peter against a wall of the cell.

"Sirius," Harry said through the window. "See if he has his wand."

"Right," Sirius said. "Good idea. I'll bet you do, Peter — you'd never be without it, would you?" There was a rustling of clothes as Sirius rummaged through Peter's coat and pants. "Here we go! Yep, it's the one I remember from Hogwarts. Managed to keep this all those years, did you, Peter?"

"Sirius," Harry heard Peter pleading. "Please — not my wand! I need it to get back, to tell Mr. Malfoy how Harry is doing!"

"Maybe I'll tell him myself," Harry said, through the window.

"So let me get this straight," Sirius said. "The _Minister of Magic_ sent you here to check up on a single prisoner, and you're sneaking around in your Animagus form to do that? That smells pretty fishy, Peter." Sirius turned his head toward the window. "Why would this Malfoy want to know how you're doing in here, Harry? Were you and he friends or something?"

"Not exactly," Harry muttered. "It's a long story, though, and we don't have time for it now, not even the 'long story short' version. What are you going to do with Pettigrew? Oh! And by the way, you said that he _wasn't_ an Animagus!"

"Yeah, I lied about that," Sirius said matter-of-factly. "About myself, too. Sorry, Harry, but I couldn't trust you with that information, not after I just first met you. That's the only way I've been able to survive here all these years. When you're in Animagus form the Dementors don't affect you nearly as much as they do when you're human."

Harry nodded to himself. "Not a problem," he replied. "I had it about figured out, anyway. You slept on these blankets in the corner, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Sirius admitted. "The guards couldn't see me unless they came into the cell, and I could transform back to human before they came in.

"So what _should_ I do with you, Peter?" Sirius returned his attention to Pettigrew. "You betrayed James and Lily and caused their deaths, you orphaned their son Harry, and you murdered twelve people to frame me and get me sent here. _And_ you're a Death Eater. Merlin knows what other shit you've done since then! Do you think I have _any_ reason to show you mercy — any reason at all?"

Harry heard a gasp, then Pettigrew's voice, "Sirius, please! D-don't kill me with my own w-wand!"

"Why not?" Sirius snarled. "How many have _you_ killed with it, rat?"

There was a part of Harry — almost the only part he had left now: the angry, vengeful part that the Dementors hadn't taken from him — that wanted to see Pettigrew dead as much as Sirius did. But the Dementors hadn't taken everything from him, yet, and he spoke through the window. "Sirius, give me the wand."

"Think I'm going to kill him, Harry?" Sirius said, his voice raw with dark emotion. "I'm pondering it, that's true enough."

"Sirius, please!" Peter gasped. "Harry, help me! He wants to kill me."

"Sirius, give me the wand," Harry repeated. "You can pass it through the window, it'll fit through the grates."

"I don't need this wand to kill Peter," Sirius growled. "And he knows it!"

"Sirius, you don't want to kill him," Harry argued. "You need him alive, to prove that you didn't betray James and Lily Potter or murder those twelve Muggles back on that street in London. We need to turn him over to the Aurors!"

There was silence for a moment. "Even if that does get me out," Sirius said, slowly. "What about you? You're not here because of anything Peter did, are you?"

"No, I'm here because I killed someone."

"Who?"

"A man named James Monroe," Harry sighed. "I deserve to be here, Sirius, but you _don't_. Use Peter's wand to call for the Aurors, or pass it to me and I'll do it."

Harry waited breathlessly for Sirius to respond. Neither he nor Pettigrew spoke for some time. Finally, Harry heard Sirius.

"_Ex-expecto P-Patronum_." Nothing seemed to happen.

"_Expecto Patronum_!" Sirius repeated, louder this time. But still nothing happened.

"_Expecto_— I can't do it." The end of Peter's wand slid through the window. "Go ahead, Harry, take it — before I change my mind."

Harry took the wand, pulling it through the grate. It felt strange to have a wand in his hand. He'd never expected to hold one again.

"It's not going to do any good, Harry!" Peter's voice came through the window. "Mr. Malfoy will get me out of this! Neither you or Sirius are getting out of — oooof!" There was a thud of fist on flesh.

"Shut up," Sirius said. "Don't you worry about what Malfoy's going to do — you worry about your _own_ arse, rat. You're still in here with me."

"Don't hurt him, Sirius," Harry warned.

"Gonna call the golden boys?" Sirius asked, plaintively. "Don't worry, I'm not going to murder the little rat. But hurry up, will you? I'm tired of looking at him."

Harry said nothing. He was getting his mind right; no small feat now, given where they were. The repressive, foreboding darkness of the Dementors was bearing down on his mind, making it hard to form the mindset he needed to cast the spell he intended. He would never embrace Death, and he hoped Sirius would never embrace it, either, even though a creature like Peter Pettigrew might rightly deserve to have Death visit him and send him on his way to whatever lay beyond, be it paradise or oblivion.

Death, on the other hand, _did_ deserve to die.

Harry had done it, once upon a time, the very first time he had successfully cast the Patronus Charm. He had killed a Dementor, a thing theretofore though unkillable and undying, though he hadn't realized it until his Patronus faded and the Dementor he had cast his charm at was gone, leaving only its tattered cloak as evidence it had ever been there. This time, he would not kill a Dementor. At least, not unless they came to kill _him_.

But he'd considered that once before, the first time he'd been in Azkaban, all those years ago with Professor Quirrell, to rescue someone from this place. That had turned out to be one of the worst mistakes of his life, for more than one reason. But the _worst_ thing he'd learned in the aftermath of that benighted adventure, the one thing that that he regretted not doing, was coming back here and destroying every Dementor in Azkaban, even if it might have cost him his life. He'd been given the chance, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he had not realized what he was being offered. He'd turned down the phoenix that came to him, offering to bring him here and help him in his quest to rid the world of Dementors, thinking he could do that thing later, when he'd been better prepared. He had been wrong. And now he was suffering for it. But this was the end of it, Harry resolved. From now on, if he ever got out of this place, it was going to be no more Mr. Nice Guy when it came to Dementors.

But for now all he wanted to do was push back the darkness, to give him and Sirius a moment to recover from the oppressive sensation of the Dementors draining of their happiness and their magic. Very few people, even today, knew the form of his Patronus, and he didn't want anyone else to know — especially not the Aurors guarding this prison, given that he would be remaining here even if Sirius was set free. Sirius was innocent of the crimes he'd been accused of — _he_ was not.

Harry closed his eyes momentarily. Those kinds of thoughts wouldn't do. He thought of his wife Hermione, his friends the Weasleys — even Ron, who never did like him much, first because Harry dared be friends with Draco Malfoy, and later because of his closeness to Hermione. He thought of his parents in Oxford, his father now a Professor Emeritus. He thought of phoenix song, which hadn't heard in so very long, though its memory reverberated through his mind now that he'd remembered it once again; he thought of the Earth, a blue and white oasis of life in the cold lifelessness of the Solar System, an oasis that would soon be the center of a Civilization stretching across the galaxy.

Harry's fingers moved into their starting positions on Peter's wand; he twitched it once, twice, thrice, and then four times, moving it at exactly the right relative angles to each other, he shifted his forefinger and thumb exactly the right distance across the wand, and said the words.

"_Expecto Patronum_!"

Light burst from the wand, moving forward and forming itself into a corporeal image: a figure with two arms, two legs and a head, standing in the center of the room, blazing so bright it nearly hurt his eyes, accustomed as they still were to the dimness of the cell.

"What the hell?" he heard Sirius say from the next cell. "What's that light — ?"

"I've cast the Patronus," Harry said, feeling the depression and the weakness fall away from him. "Do you feel it, Sirius?"

"Yes, yes!" Sirius's voice was stronger now. "Merlin, I feel good again! I don't know how long it's been since — auughk!" There was a clang of metal on metal, and a shrill squeal of fright. "Peter, you little — _rrrrowll_!"

"What happened?" Harry shouted, but the sound of angry growling was all he heard from the next cell. The squeaking continued, louder than ever, but suddenly cut off.

He needed to get in there. Harry looked around the room, trying to decide what he could do. His eyes fell on the tray of food he had finished before falling asleep in the corner, then on the wall separating the cells. He knew then what he could do. He just hoped he could do what he needed to do while keeping his Patronus up.

He grabbed the empty food bowl off the tray, dropping it on the floor. He pointed his wand at it. "_Engorgio_," he said, and the bowl expanded until it was over 18 inches in diameter. Big enough, Harry judged.

The wand swept around, touching the cell wall, and Harry visualized turning part of the wall to viscous oil. Not a large part of the wall — it need only be big enough to crawl through. As it was, it took almost three minutes of concentration before a rough circle of the wall suddenly flowed into a puddle of brownish fluid.

"_Wingardium Leviosa_," Harry muttered, one of the first spells he'd ever learned, and the puddle of oil rose into the air, congealing into a wobbly sphere of brownish liquid that floated over above the enlarged food bowl. Harry lowered the oil into the bowl, then leaned down, looking through the hole.

A large black dog stared back at him. In its mouth was a dead rat.

"Sirius?" Harry said, uncertainly, and the dog cocked its head at him. "What happened?"

The dog shook its head, worrying the rat a last time, though it was hardly necessary. Harry could see that its neck was broke. "Put him down, Sirius," Harry said, in a commanding voice ("his Master's voice," a very old slogan for a phonograph record company echoing through his mind). "He's dead."

The dog set the rat on the floor in front of him. As he looked up again his features flowed, transforming into Sirius Black sitting on the floor. Harry could see a trickle of blood coming from Sirius's side. Beside him Harry now saw, was a silver knife, its blade stained with blood.

"He stabbed me," Sirius said, unnecessarily. "While I was distracted by your — your…_whatever_ that is." Sirius peered through the hole in the wall, looking at the Patronus in wonder. "He tried to get out through the vent hole." A hand pointed a finger shakily at the small hole in the wall. Harry saw now that it was just big enough for a rat to crawl through.

"I just reacted, Harry," Sirius said, his voice shaking. "I couldn't let him get away, and my Animagus form is a lot faster than I am. I grabbed Peter as he tried to disappear down that hole and I — shook him until he stopped squealing. I didn't realize I'd broken his neck until…"

"It's alright," Harry said, softly, putting a hand on Sirius's shoulder. He trembled but didn't pull away. "He brought it on himself, attacking you."

Sirius nodded slowly, then sat up straighter. "So now what?" he asked.

"Well…" Harry paused. He glanced behind him, and his Patronus moved forward, stepping through the wall as if it weren't there. He and Sirius were now being bathed in its light, and that light was making Harry feel a _lot_ better.

Having his Patronus close by was doing other things as well, he discovered. Memories were coming back into his mind, memories that had been repressed, hidden, pushed back into his unconscious, unavailable to him until now. He remembered who Draco Malfoy _really_ was, and what had actually occurred between him, Ginny and James Monroe. He had _not_ killed James — _Voldemort_ had, and had framed both him and Ginny for crimes they never committed. He wasn't going to let things stand like that.

"Now," he declared forcefully. "We break out of here!"


	26. Escape from Azkaban

**Chapter Twenty-Six  
><strong>**Escape from Azkaban**

_Updated_ 3/15/2013

=ooo=

"Now," Harry declared forcefully. "We break out of here!" He then slumped to the floor next to Sirius. "As soon as I rest for a minute."

Sirius didn't answer or acknowledge Harry's statement. He still seemed to be thinking about Peter Pettigrew's death — his eyes, dark and sunken within their sockets, stared into nothingness.

For someone who had spent over _35 years_ in Azkaban, Harry reflected, Sirius Black looked amazingly well. He remembered what Bellatrix Black had looked like after only a decade — she had been more of a corpse than a woman, when Harry first saw her: eyes shrunken below their lids, lips so shriveled she might not have been able to close them over her teeth, and skin so pale and thin it might have been paper stretched over a skeleton. In comparison, with the draining effects of the Dementors removed by Harry's Patronus, Sirius should have been dancing around the cell right now.

A while later Harry asked, "Sirius? How do you feel?"

Sirius slowly blinked and managed a small shrug. "Better," he said, though his expression didn't change. "I don't feel _them_ anymore." He blinked again in what was apparently confusion about what had just happened. "Where _are_ we?"

"Still in Azkaban," Harry said, matter-of-factly. "But not for long — we're getting out of here."

"Getting out…of Azkaban?" Sirius repeated, slowly. "I — I don't know if that's even possible."

"Oh, I think it is," Harry muttered. "I just need a moment to figure out what to do."

"A _moment_?" Sirius at last looked up at Harry, a look of disbelief on his pale, emaciated face. "You're going to need a lot longer than a moment, Harry. I've been thinking about it since I got here, and I'm still _here_. Whatever you and your shining friend here are planning, it's probably not going to work."

_It worked before_, Harry thought, remembering the last time he was here, but he didn't have the resources that he did back then. He'd had his Invisibility Cloak, his mokeskin pouch filled with useful items — and a brilliant Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who was highly motivated to escape without detection.

What did he have now? A wand taken from a now-dead traitor and a man who'd been a prisoner here for 35 years. Plus, he also remembered, his own mind and body were crippled because of spells that had been placed on him before he'd come here. One of those he'd unfortunately cast upon himself, but the other one was the work of Voldemort, who'd been possessing the body of Ginny Thomas.

And Ginny was in Azkaban, too, Harry recalled, sent here for the death of three Aurors that Voldemort had murdered while possessing her body. He would have to find her, too, and get her out of here.

"It'll work," Harry insisted stubbornly.

"What's your plan, then?" Sirius asked, doubtfully.

"No idea," Harry said. "I'm still thinking."

"Perhaps I can be of assistance," another voice spoke. The voice had been Harry's, though. Harry looked up in surprise — it had come from his Patronus!

Sirius was staring up at the shining humanoid as well. "Who's this supposed to be?" he asked. "I didn't think ghosts lasted long in Azkaban — the Dementors drain them, too. They either leave or eventually they disappear."

"He's not a ghost," Harry said distractedly. Why had his Patronus spoken? Harry hadn't told him to say anything. "He's my Patronus."

Sirius snorted derisively. "No it's not," he said, disbelievingly. "Patronuses are animals, not humans."

"I _am_ a Patronus," Harry's Patronus said, directly to Sirius. "Harry has several unique abilities, among them the ability to produce a True Patronus such as myself."

"Why are you able to speak?" Harry asked. "I didn't think even _my_ Patronus had the ability to speak other than to repeat what I've told you to say."

"It has been some time since you've produced me," the Patronus answered. "In fact, since before you left Hogwarts. But I have always been within you — growing, learning, maturing. I know much has happened to you in just the past few months."

Harry nodded. Looking at his Patronus now, he saw that it was more than a mere humanoid shape. He could see feature on it — lips, a nose, and even a silvery mop of disheveled hair much like Harry had when he was younger. "You even look a bit like me, now," he said.

"Yes, but unlike you, I do not suffer from the same disadvantages you do. I have no physical body — my corporeal form is mere appearance — but my mind is the equivalent of yours without the disadvantages the Memory Enhancing Ritual imposed upon it. I have your full intelligence and memory, and I share your desire to leave this place."

Harry nodded again. "Good," he said. "I've been remembering things since I produced you — is that because I'm no longer feeling the Dementors' influence?"

"It is, to a degree," the Patronus answered. "But I have also been returning some of your memories to you — they were erased by Voldemort with a Memory Charm; you would not have remembered them except for my retention of them — I am not susceptible to such Charms."

Sirius, who had been silent since learning the glowing, silvery human was not a ghost, but Harry's Patronus, finally spoke again. "Maybe I've been in here too long, but I don't understand a bloody thing either of you are saying!"

"Probably not," Harry agreed, "but it would take too long to explain right now. Our first priority should be getting out of here and finding a safe place for us to stay and recuperate." He looked at his Patronus. "Do you have any ideas?"

His Patronus nodded slowly. "I have been considering our escape. Do you think you can cast a Portkey spell capable of reaching northern Scotland?"

"That won't work," Sirius said immediately. "You can't leave or enter Azkaban with a Portkey."

Harry knew that as well, but why would his Patronus suggest it in the first place? "He's right, you know," he said to his silvery doppleganger.

"There is one place in Azkaban where magic does not, _can_ not persist," the Patronus said. "In the nest of Dementors at the bottom of the prison, in its core."

Sirius barked a laugh. "For good reason! Nobody can go down there without going catatonic! Even if every Auror in this place sent their Patronuses down with you, you couldn't stand to be there more than a minute or two before the Dementors would drain you of every last bit of happiness and magic! Harry, you can't seriously be thinking of trying something as stupid as that, even with this Patronus of yours! Like Shiny Bloke said, magic doesn't work there anyway!"

Harry saw what his Patronus was suggesting. "But if the Dementors _weren't_ there," he pointed out, "the wards preventing a fast exit from Azkaban wouldn't be in effect _either_, and we could create a Portkey and get out of here."

"There are something like 80 or 100 Dementors down there," Sirius argued. "You might hold them off for a bit, but some of them would be bound to grab you and — and — K-Kiss you…" He shuddered involuntarily. "They would, you know — just to be rid of your Patronus. They prefer to do it slowly, though, to drain you a bit at a time, enjoying the taste of your happiness."

"Bollocks," Harry said.

Sirius looked affronted. "I've been here a lot bloody longer than you have, Harry — I ought to know how they think by now!"

"Dementors don't think," Harry retorted. "They never have. Wizards just anthropomorphize them because they see a humanoid shape and think that a human-like shape means a human-like mind. That's not true."

"They've spoken to _me_!" Sirius snarled. "Don't tell me they don't speak, Harry! They've taunted me for as long as I've been here, reminding me that I'm here because my own kind turned against me, threw me in here without a fair trial just to be rid of me, to tie up a messy end now that Voldemort was destroyed! And they were _wrong_, weren't they!?" he shouted, slamming his claw-like hands down on the steel floor. "Pettigrew's dead now, but _he_ should have been in here, not me!"

"I'm not arguing that," Harry replied, calmly; he'd also remembered what happened the last time he'd let his emotions run away with him while in Azkaban. "But we have to think about getting out of here, not have a row over whether Dementors can speak or not. Do you agree?"

Sirius still looked angry, though he gave Harry the impression that most of his anger was still directed at himself, for killing Pettigrew, but he nodded curtly. "Yeah," he muttered at last. "Seeing how you and I found one another after all this time, Harry, I think we _should_ get out of here if we can."

"Alright," Harry nodded. He looked back at his Patronus, who'd been waiting patiently during the argument, and asked, "What is your plan to get out of here?"

"We must first locate Ginny Thomas," the Patronus said. "Convicted of multiple murders, she is below this level, not far from us. We are in the C-spiral, third level of the prison. I would seek her out alone, but if I am not in your presence you will feel the effects of the Dementors once again. You both must go with me. After we find her we must travel to the bottommost level of the prison, where Harry will remove a section of the wall, revealing the nesting place of the Dementors, and I will deal with them."

"Sounds pretty simple, assuming you can pull it off," Sirius said skeptically. "But we've got a wand, now, so it shouln't be too hard to get out of here."

"It _will_ work," Harry said, determinedly. "I don't know how long I've been in here, but this is the best chance we all have of getting out of here, and I'm not going to pass it up!"

=ooo=

The trek to the bottom of Azkaban began with the large iron padlock that secured the door of Harry's cell. A simple _Alohomora_ was sufficient to open it; like nearly every other lock in the wizards' prison it had no wards to prevent magical unlocking spells from working on it — no spell meant to last any length of time could withstand the draining effect of the Dementors. Harry followed up that charm with a spell to remove the lock from the latch that kept the door from opening, and it fell to the metal floor of the corridor with a loud _clang_.

Harry winced at the noise, but he hadn't regained enough fine control yet to switch to a Levitation Charm in time to prevent the lock from falling. They would have to hope that the sound would not carry far enough through the metal structure to be heard on the top level of the prison where the Aurors guarding them were stationed.

He pushed the door open a fraction, and Sirius, now transformed back into the large, bearlike dog that was his Animagus form, softly padded into the corridor beyond to check out the situation. Harry had his Patronus move just past the doorway so that both he and Sirius remain within its silvery, protective light. As long as they were, they would be invisible to the Dementors — more than invisible, in fact: the Dementors would not even realize they were there anymore, just as they had not been able to see Bellatrix Black when she was bathed in his Patronus's light, back when he and Quirrell came to rescue her.

Sirius returned after perhaps two minutes, transforming back to human to report to Harry. "Not much going on out there; I think you and I were the only two still alive in this block of cells. I could hear someone screaming somewhere down the corridor."

The screaming had bothered Harry the first time he'd been here. It had been heart-wrenching, in fact. But he had only heard it after he'd screwed up their chances of escaping Azkaban without being noticed. And it had been Sirius's cousin Bellatrix that had caused him to do it.

But that had been long ago, from an eleven-year old boy who hadn't really thought about the sheer horror a place like Azkaban could generate within him. Now it was a quarter-century later, and Harry was much better versed in the ways of the world than he had been back then. Azkaban was still a horror, one Harry hoped to end one day, but it wasn't going to cause him to lose control.

If he did what his Patronus had seemed to imply, once they were at the base of the tower, he would make serious progress toward the ending of Azkaban.

"Let's go," Harry said, softly, and Sirius, Harry and his Patronus stepped into the corridor. They were in a block of eight cells, one of several along this side of the three-sided structure, and Harry had been in the cell nearest to the inner wall; on the other side was the central core of the tower, open at the top. At the bottom of that open shaft was the nest of Dementors — a layer of dirt that had to be regularly replaced because the presence of the Dementors caused it to dissolve into nothingness over time.

The corridor they were in was dimly lit in orange light coming from gas lamps set along either side of the block. They moved slowly to the end of the corridor, where another locked steel door blocked their way. Harry made short work of that lock as well, catching it this time before it hit the floor.

Then they were in the outer corridor, the one leading along one edge of the huge hollow triangular tower. In the silvery light of his Patronus Harry could see three other metal doors set along the corridor, all on the same side. The opposite side of the corridor was a solid steel wall. At either end were the steel doors that led to staircases going up or down along the spiral they were in. Now for the next order of business…

"Do you know where Ginny is?" Harry asked his Patronus.

The Patronus seemed to smile slightly before it answered. "Of course," it said. "However, she is not in this spiral. We must find a way to the A-spiral, and two levels further down."

"Nearly halfway to the Dementors," Sirius muttered. "How long has she been in here?"

"As long as me," Harry said, "but I don't know how long I've been here."

"You have been incarcerated here for 37 days," his Patronus interjected.

"That's _all_?" It had seemed like months to Harry — years, even. "Can you tell how she's doing?"

"Not without going to her," the Patronus answered. "If I leave you and Sirius you will experience the full effects of the Dementors once again. Sirius could change into his Animagus form, but you would be incapacitated after a few minutes. If they sense you are out of your cell they will come for you, and if I were not present they might choose to Kiss you."

"What if I cast my Patronus?" Sirius asked. "I feel better now, I think I can produce one."

"There is only one wand," the Patronus pointed out.

"Oh, yeah. Dammit!" Sirius slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. "I guess I'm not thinking as well as I expected."

"You've been here longer," Harry said, almost gently. Then, suddenly realizing something, he turned to the Patronus. "Won't there be an Auror patrol coming through here soon?"

"I was just thinking that as well," the Patronus answered. "The Aurors patrolling this spiral will be bringing water as they renew the wards that are kept active to prevent unauthorized access to each level. They are scheduled to traverse this level in approximately 5 minutes. The patrols in the other levels will be moving in parallel. Fortunately, we are in the C-spiral, so the levels below us will be clear for approximately 15 minutes if we can get through to the A-spiral level below us."

"How difficult is that going to be?" Harry asked anxiously. His brain dimly remembered the ridiculous amount of constraints his last passage through Azkaban had been.

"It depends on how difficult it is to locate the secret passage between the levels," his Patronus answered.

"How do you know there's a secret passage?" Sirius asked, looking doubtful.

"Because this structure was built by wizards," the Patronus replied, its voice dry rather than the emotionless monotone it usually spoke with. "Secret passages are almost _de rigeur_, even for a prison where security is paramount. They will be keyed to the Aurors, of course — we may have difficulty locating them."

Sirius grinned crookedly. "I guess you're right about wizards and secret passages," he said. "I remember the fun we had whenever we found a new one in Hogwarts! James and I would have races to see who could get from Gryffindor Tower to the Great Hall the fastest —"

"Not to interrupt your fond memories," Harry said shortly, "but we should start _looking_ for that secret passage if we're going to be gone when the Aurors get to this level."

"Right," Sirius looked around the corridor. "Which way do we go, then?"

"The spirals go downward clockwise from the top level," the Patronus said. "And the cells are toward the inward edge of each level, so that door—" it pointed the door on their right— "will lead us downward. However—" it then pointed to the door on the left. "I have a intuition we will find the passage to A-spiral in that direction."

"We should get cracking, then," Harry said, turning that way. "We have less than 5 minutes to find it before the Aurors arrive on this level."

The three of them — the shining figure of Harry's Patronus, the skeletally-thin Animagus, and perhaps the only other innocent man in Azkaban — made their way toward the door leading to the staircase that would take them upward to the next level of the spiral and closer to the Aurors who were approaching from that direction.

=ooo=

Three pairs of Aurors moved in parallel down the interleaved levels of Azkaban Prison's three spirals, each pair staying a bit behind the team in the level below them. This sweep was for water only, as well as to renew the spells preventing magical entry into and exit from the levels, both from outside and between levels of the prison itself. It would do no good if intruders could Apparate or Portkey between levels and spirals of the prison.

The procedure for this pass was simple: collect the numbered bowls left near the entrance of each cell block, then fill each bowl with water using _Aguamenti_ and pass it through the door of the cell that corresponded to the number on the bowl. If there was an empty bowl near the door, take it to be placed at next to the block door. If a prisoner forgot to place their bowls next to the door they didn't get any more water; it was that simple. It didn't take the new prisoners long to figure it out.

Auror Xiaoguang (aka "Mike") Li, a veteran of Azkaban of nearly 20 years, had partnered with Auror Wilhelm Janssen, who had only recently been given duty at the prison. Wil was still unused to the unsettling effects of being so close to Dementors for an extended period of time; his silver cockatiel wavered unsteadily even though Li had him stay near the block door, as far from the Dementors as possible while still in view of both the cell block and the outside corridor. Li's own silver badger was emitting a soft, steady glow, protecting him and Janssen from the effects of the Dementors below.

Li returned with three water bowls, the current count of still-living prisoners in this block. By and large the prisoners managed to stay alive longer these days than they had when Li had first come to Azkaban. In those days, if you were put in the wizards' prison it was to do real hard time — hardly any prisoners had survived from those days. Li remembered stories he'd read in the Prophet about a _twelve-year old_ girl the Wizengamot almost sentenced to Azkaban — she had gone on years later to become Minister of Magic. She had only recently resigned after her husband, Harry Potter, was sent to prison for murder. They would check on Potter in the next section of the spiral, along with the man who'd been here the longest of anyone: Sirius Black.

"Doing okay, Wil?" Li asked, coolly, as he stepped past Janssen and into the corridor beyond. Janssen nodded, looking pale.

"You'll get used to it," Li said as they walked to the last cell block in this section, casting _Alohomora_ on the door's large iron padlock and removing it. He hung the open lock on the door and opened it. "Have any of your mates mentioned keeping your Patronus active as you sleep yet?"

"Y-yes," Janssen replied, his voice dubious. "But I didn't think you could maintain one while you were asleep."

"It's a bit tricky," Li conceded. He looked at the small shelf next to the door, where the water bowls were stored. Three bowls. He frowned. There were four prisoners in this block. Had Number Two forgotten to put his bowl by the door, or… "Most of us manage it, after some practice. You'll sleep better if your Patronus is next to you. Keeps the nightmares away." He filled Bowl One with water, then opened the small trapdoor at the bottom of the large steel door numbered One and slid the bowl inside. An empty bowl was next to the door; he Summoned it and put it on the bottom of the other bowls, then moved to cell Two.

Opening the trap door, he cast _Homenum Revelio_. There was a flash showing a human lying on the camp bed inside. And an empty bowl next to the door. Good — the prisoner had probably just forgotten earlier. Li Summoned the bowl then moved on, filling the other bowls and replacing the empty bowls with them.

When he returned to the cell block door, Janssen was giving him an expectant look, as if he wanted to say something. "What is it?" Li asked as he closed the door and relocked the padlock.

"Well," Janssen was looking toward the door leading to the stairs down to the next level. "This is the spiral that, um, Harry Potter is in, isn't it?"

A smile curled a corner of Li's mouth. "It took you long enough to ask me that, Wil. Yeah, Potter's on the next level, he's been here about a month now. You haven't been down to see him yet?"

Janssen shook his head. His cockatiel Patronus mirrored the gesture. "This is the first time I've gone down C-spiral," he said. "The other guys on my team have, uh, covered for me going on food and water runs. Er, to give me time to acclimate to the place."

Li nodded. "Yeah, this place can get to you if you let it. I've been doing tours here since 1990 and if it weren't for the triple-pay I'd walk away in a heartbeat. And it was ten times worse back in the 90's!"

"Worse?" Janssen's eyes widened. "Than _now_? You've got to be shitting me, Mike! This is the most awful place I've ever been in!"

"You can imagine how it is for the prisoners, then," Li pointed out. "We've only got one prisoner left from back then, and he's been here since 1981. He's on the next level, too, a bloke named Sirius Black."

"Since 1981?" Janssen looked horrified. "Merlin, that's over 35 years! How could anyone stand it here that long?"

"Some of us have wondered that as well," Li agreed. "We don't see much of Black — he doesn't lie on his bunk much. He prefers to curl up in a corner of the cell where we can't see him unless we go inside. We check up on him every so often, change out his blankets every six months or so. They're always covered with hair, though he's still got a full head of hair himself. Haven't quite worked that out, yet."

Li jerked a thumb at the door leading to the staircase down to the next level. "Let's keep moving. If you like I'll let you change out the water bowls in Potter and Black's cells. They're in the same block — for some reason, when Black heard that Harry Potter was in here he asked to be moved next to his cell. Nobody could think of a good reason why not, so we moved him.

"But…" Janssen had a thoughtful frown on his face. "Before I came here I read a book on the most famous prisoners in Azkaban over the centuries. People like Crispin Cronk, or Carlotta Pinkstone, and of course Bellatrix and Sirius Black. I remember reading that Black had something to do with the death of Harry Potter's parents."

Li shrugged indifferently. "I remember something about that — Black told his leader, the Dark Lord Voldemort, where the Potters were hidden so Voldemort could kill them. That was pretty treacherous but it's not the reason Black is in here. A day or so after the Potters died Black murdered a wizard in full view of witnesses on a London street. He killed twelve Muggles as well."

Janssen shook his head. "I don't think Harry Potter would want someone like Black anywhere near him, especially after all that."

"Well, if Harry Potter offers us a bribe to move him away from Black, we'll consider it," Li suggested. He patted Janssen on the shoulder. "For now, let's get cracking so we don't fall behind the other spirals. And remember, you're going to have a look at Harry Potter himself."

Janssen nodded, and his Patronus brightened fractionally. A chance to see Harry Potter-Evans-Verres-Granger himself! The two men moved toward the door at the end of the corridor, the one leading to a long, metal staircase to the next level down.

=ooo=

Harry and Sirius stared at the staircase leading up to the level above them. Every staircase to a new level of each spiral was located in a corner of the prison where two sides met. A short hallway led to each staircase, which led up or down (depending on which direction you were traveling in) along the inside of the outer wall of the prison, to a landing area, then continued along the adjacent wall to the next level

Somewhere in this area was a secret passage between the C- and A-spirals, if Harry's Patronus was correct. But they only had about four minutes to find it! "What do we look for?" Harry asked his Patronus.

"It will not be obvious, of course," the Patronus said, thoughtfully, looking around the hallway they were in. "I can search for it directly, if you do not mind me being out of sight for a little while."

"What about the Dementors?" Harry asked. "Won't they sense us if we're not protected by your light?"

"There is a small risk, but I will be out of your sight only a few seconds," the Patronus said. "Do you wish to risk it?"

"Go," Harry said immediately. "We don't have much time." The Patronus nodded and moved up the stairway, its protective light dimming as it moved away from them.

A pall of depression began to settle over Harry and Sirius. Sirius bent over, holding his head as if he'd suddenly developed a splitting headache. "Damn," he muttered. "I'd forgotten how bad that felt!"

"Yeah," Harry agreed, wincing at the near-pain he felt now that his Patronus was no longer protecting them from the Dementors' debilitating influence. He put his arms around himself, trying to hold in the vestiges of optimism and happiness he'd felt only moments earlier. "At least you can turn into your Animagus form and avoid the worst of this."

"But I won't," Sirius said, standing straighter again. "Not if you can't. Damn, I wish I had a wand! I could cast my own Patronus for us! I wish yours would hurry up and find that bloody secret passage already —"

"Up here," Harry's Patronus said suddenly from somewhere along the staircase. "Hurry, the Aurors are almost finished with the level above us."

Harry and Sirius scrambled up the staircase steps, feeling better as the approached the landing. The Patronus was there, standing next to a wall on the side nearest the outside corner. "It is here," it said, pointing to the wall. "But we are nearly out of time. Harry, you should cast Colloportus on the door at the top of the stairs, the two Aurors moving through this spiral are nearly ready to enter."

Harry nodded and moved up the staircase until he was almost at the top and he could see the large steel door leading to the level above them. He concentrated for a moment, then pointed the wand he held at the door and said, "_Colloportus_." There was a soft _click_ as the lock in the door engaged. He moved back down the stairs to the landing.

"That won't hold them more than a few seconds," he said, looking at the wall his Patronus had indicated earlier. "Where's the passageway?"

"Just about here," the Patronus pointed to a section of the wall. You will need to cast Quarello's Discernment spell to reveal it."

Harry held up his wand, but shook his head a moment later. "I don't remember the words," he said, anxiously. "I know I should —"

It is 'Revelio Dex Ontoblum,'" the Patronus said. "You should hurry — the Aurors are about to enter the stairwell."

Harry nodded and drew a breath, then pointed his wand and repeated the words. There was no response. The handle on the door at the top of the staircase rattled, as if someone was trying to turn it.

"Try again!" Sirius urged. "Concentrate, Harry!"

"_You_ concentrate," Harry muttered. He jerked as a hand touched him — his Patronus had placed its silver palm on his shoulder. That helped — the gestures and words of the charm suddenly appeared in his brain. "_Revelio Dex Ontobulum_!" he said softly, the tip of the wand tracing the correct pattern, and a small doorway appeared in the wall, just large enough for him and Sirius to squeeze through.

"Let's go," Harry whispered, and he and Sirius moved into the passage, pulling the cover closed behind them. The Patronus murmured words in Harry's ear and he pointed his wand at the cover and cast one more spell.

The inside of the passage was larger than Harry had expected, but it probably wasn't an Extension Charm — that would eventually dissipate if not kept up by the Aurors. Two staircases led away, one going up, the other going down, and Harry's Patronus moved into the one going down. Harry and Sirius immediately followed, moving as quietly as they could on the metal steps of the staircase.

=ooo=

"What the hell?" Li said, confused, as the door leading to the staircase down to the next level refused to open. "Nobody should have locked this!"

Janssen was looking around, suddenly alert. "Did you hear something? A clicking sound?"

"No," Li said, chagrinned. He'd been thinking about what Janssen would say when he saw Harry Potter for the first time. "Call it in to Control," he ordered. "We'll proceed on Level Two alert." That meant Anti-Disillusionment and Shield Charms in place, and Human Revealment spells cast ahead of them wherever someone might be hiding under an invisibility cloak. While Janssen called Upstairs to let them know there was a problem, Li put up his shields and cast the Anti-Disillusionment Charm on himself. Incidentally he cast Alohomora on the door in front of them and waved it open with his wand, casting Homenum Revelio on the landing and staircase. There was no one there, at least not between where they were and the landing of the staircase.

Janssen cast his own spells and the two of them moved slowly into the stairway and down the steps. Li cast a detection spell that showed human footprints and handprints — they had touched one wall of the landing. Li cast a spell on the area around the handprints, but the cover of the passageway between spirals, accessible only by use of an advanced detection spell, had not been opened recently. Breaking into Azkaban still wasn't that difficult, if you were good enough, but it still rankled Li that it had happened on his watch. After that fiasco in early '92 the Head had reamed out everyone on duty and docked them a week's pay. He didn't want another situation like that taking place again.

A thought came unbidden into his consciousness. It wasn't a happy thought, of course, but then most Aurors were pessimists at heart, he'd decided. What if Harry Potter and/or Sirius Black had escaped? Li grimaced, deciding to keep that potential disaster to himself for the moment.

"Let's see what's going on down there," he instead whispered to Janssen, and the two Aurors moved down the staircase to the next level below.

=ooo=

Harry and Sirius followed Harry's Patronus down the narrow, steep passageway. It curved tightly, making Harry think whoever had designed it had planned for very little extra room. The steel walls of the passage were cold and clammy; they must be very near the outer wall of the prison. Briefly, Harry wondered if they could simply break out right here, but remembered why they were going to A-spiral: to rescue Ginny. Ginny, who never should have ended up in Azkaban the first place except that Voldemort had used her against him. All those years he must've hidden himself away within her body, waiting for the moment to reassert himself. Not a pleasant thought. But then, when you were in Azkaban such thoughts were commonplace.

They reached a small landing where another set of steps branched off, continuing to spiral downward, and a short corridor leading to a blank wall. Harry's Patronus stood aside, gesturing for Harry to step forward.

"You must cast Quarello's Discernment again to open this cover," the Patronus told him. "Once we are in A-spiral I will lead us directly to Ginny Thomas's cell."

Harry cast the spell again and the cover popped open. He and Sirius piled out onto the landing, and the Patronus appeared next to them a moment later. "Remember to shut the cover and cast the spell erasing our use of the passageway." Harry complied, then the three of them moved down the staircase to the door below, the letters 5-A stenciled next to it.

"Halfway down the tower," Sirius muttered. "What did this Ginny Thomas do?"

"Nothing," Harry said grimly. "But she was convicted of murdering three Aurors."

Sirius whistled, though it was more like a shrill sigh than a whistle. "I'm surprised she's not deeper in the prison, then — the Aurors here don't treat Auror-killers well at all. I'm supposed to have killed thirteen people, including a wizard, and I'm two levels above her."

Now out in the corridor for this level, the Patronus pointed unerringly to the third block door. "She is there, in the cell closest to the inner wall and the Dementors. Things are not well with her — I can barely sense her presence."  
>Harry moved forward, striding purposefully to the third door along the corridor. As he approached the door his wand went out, pointing at the padlock on the door; it broke apart and fell to the floor with a <em>clang<em>. The door flew open and Harry went through without breaking stride, Sirius and Harry's Patronus hurrying after him.

When Sirius and the Patronus reached the block door Harry was already striding down the corridor to the farthest cell doors. "Right or left?" he said over his shoulder, to his Patronus.

"The left," the Patronus answered, and the lock on that door shattered a moment later. Harry stepped into the doorway — and halted.

"That bastard," he breathed a moment later, his gaze frozen by what he saw inside. "That fucking bastard."

Ginny Thomas lay sprawled like a broken doll across a worn and weathered cot in the corner of the cell. Her red hair, normally resplendent with color, seemed withered and gray. Her clothing, the same clothing she had been in the last time Harry saw her, was already beginning to go tattered and torn. She had not moved since Harry entered the room; the only motion he saw was the rising and falling of her chest as she breathed.

Harry moved quickly over to her, lifting her head and laying it in his lap as he sat down on the cot. Harry looked up, gesturing to his Patronus to come closer at once. The Patronus complied, and as its light shone on her Ginny heaved one shuddering sigh. Her eyes flickered, focusing on Harry's face.

"I knew you would come for me," she whispered hoarsely, then closed her eyes again.

"Yes, I'm here," Harry whispered, not knowing what else to say. He cupped her cheek in his hand, feeling an impulse to kiss her, but Prince Charming he wasn't; an _Innervate_ would do more good for her than a kiss.

Sirius stepped in front of them. "Let me take her," he said, softly. "We've got to go — we've got four more levels before we reach the bottom of Azkaban."

Harry let Sirius lift her body off the cot. He hardly looked capable of standing by himself, but he held her easily.

"We should move briskly," the Patronus said. "If the Aurors discover you are no longer in your cells they will go on alert and institute a lockdown on all levels. It will be difficult to move from level to level with a lockdown in place, and we must reach the bottom in order to escape."

Harry nodded then stood, trembling with repressed anger. He was going to kill Voldemort for this, no matter what he had to do to find that last Horcrux and destroy it. "Let's go," he ordered. "We're getting out of here, no matter _what_ comes after us now."

=ooo=

Li and Janssen moved carefully into the fourth level of C-spiral, checking for any Disillusioned people lurking in shadows and casting Homenum Revelio to check for cloaks. The footprints they had detected showed unusual activity. One set of footprints had come up the stairs almost to the door of the level they had just left, but had turned and went down again. Two sets of footprints had come up to the landing of the staircase they had just left, but had ended there. It almost looked as if they had gone into the passageway between spirals, but they'd checked and the detection spells said the door hadn't been opened. Human Revealment and Anti-Disillusionment Charms showed no one had been hiding in the staircase. If the intruders had somehow realized Li and Janssen were approaching them and backtracked, they might be hiding on this level after somehow erasing or disguising their footprints. If not, then they were moving lower and lower into Azkaban, and that was never a good direction to go in, not without serious Patronus protection.

At least, Li hoped that what the indications meant. If not… well, Li's memories of the last breakout of Azkaban still came to mind. Amelia Bones was no longer head of the DMLE, but Minister Malfoy hadn't yet appointed a replacement, which mean that _he_ would be in charge if they had to elevate this any higher. And Li did _not_ want to be around if that happened.

Janssen was tracing the footprints they could detect back along their path. "They seem to be angling toward Block Two," he murmured, and Li groaned inwardly. Black and Potter's cell block.

"Look at the padlock on the block door," Li said a moment later. "It doesn't look right." As they moved nearer they saw why: the padlock was dangling from the handle of the door instead of the latch that secured it.

"Shit," Li said softly. "Call it in. Tell them to lock it down!" There was _not_ going to be a repeat of the day Bellatrix Black escaped, he told himself again. Malfoy would have to be called in, but they would cross that bridge when they got to it.

=ooo=

Harry remained silent as they moved down the levels of A-spiral toward the bottommost level, number Nine. He was still repressing the anger he'd felt when he'd found Ginny, semi-starved and nearly dead from exposure to Dementors. Shortly, though, he would be able to let his anger out, and things would forever change at Azkaban Prison.

He was not angry at the Aurors who'd likely mistreated her, though he was not going to go easy on them if they got in his way. They believed Ginny had murdered three of their own; it was normal to feel anger and hatred toward someone who'd done something like that. It was personal to them, unlike Harry's supposed murder of James Monroe, a man none of them had known and who was simply another face in the Wizarding community. They'd treated Harry like they would any other murderer. But for Ginny, it had been three of their own.

Except that Ginny had _not_ murdered the three Aurors, Harry now remembered. It had been Voldemort possessing her body who had committed those murders. Voldemort, who was now in the body of Draco Malfoy, who had schemed and manipulated his way to the Ministry after ousting his wife, Hermione. Hermione had resigned after Harry was arrested for the murder of Monroe, but it had been Voldemort pulling the strings once again.

Now that Harry remembered these things, there was nothing that could keep him in Azkaban, slowly rotting away for a crime he didn't commit. Ginny would be leaving with him as well, as would Sirius Black who, it turned out, had _not_ killed Peter Pettigrew back in November 1981. Pettigrew had pretended to die in an explosion that killed twelve innocent people, leaving his right index finger as the only part of him left after the explosion, and gone into hiding. While Harry was in Azkaban Pettigrew snuck into his cell using the ventilation system and pretended to be one of Harry's "voices." In Harry's demented state it had been quite convincing, until Sirius, who'd been moved into the cell next to him, switched cells with Harry and captured Pettigrew, proving he was alive.

Pettigrew was dead now, however, after attacking Sirius with a knife and trying to escape. Sirius had transformed into his dog Animagus and shaken Peter to death. His body was still back in Harry's old cell, the only proof that he'd escaped death back in 1981, but the other rats in Azkaban (the real rats) would make short work of his body, and the physical proof of Sirius's innocence would be lost.

Harry had almost considered turning around to retrieve the rat's body, so at least Sirius would be able prove he hadn't committed murder, but time was running out. The Aurors moving through the levels would discover that he and Sirius were gone any moment now, and they needed to be at the lowest level of the prison before that happened; the doors between levels would become much harder to open once Azkaban went into lockdown.

They had traveled down three levels in as many minutes. Entering the ninth level Harry pointed toward the first block door, intending to remove the padlock. The doors were locked whether anyone was in the cells or not, and his Patronus had told him no one was imprisoned below Level Five in any spiral. Before he could remove the lock, however, the dim orange light of the gas lamps suddenly snuffed out, leaving only the silvery light of Harry's Patronus.

"Lockdown," Sirius whispered, looking around. He was still holding Ginny in his arms, though he looked more tired than he had three levels up.

"It doesn't matter," Harry said. "We're almost there." He looked to his Patronus, who regarded him with apparent calm. "You know what I'm going to do, don't you?"

"Of course," the Patronus answered. "I am you, after all. And I agree, this recourse has been long overdue."

Harry nodded and turned back to the block door, pointing his wand at the padlock. It snapped open and Harry pulled it from the latch, throwing it across the floor. He pulled the door open and he, Sirius with Ginny, and his Patronus marched the length of the block to the far wall.

This was the inner wall of Azkaban; on the other side was the Dementor nest, where up to a hundred Dementors would be waiting, wounds in the world that needed destroying.

Harry steeled himself. What he was about to do would be difficult, the most difficult single thing he had ever done. One Dementor 25 years ago was one thing; 100 of them all at once would be quite another. And it would be only after he had expended magic getting through the great steel inner wall, six inches or more thick. He put the wand he held against the steel wall and imagined a thin ring of the material Transfiguring to oil. This was partial Transfiguration, a skill he had created a quarter-century ago, and he was still the only wizard in the world that could do it.

Time passed excruciatingly slowly. There was no way to hurry it along, it depended on his concentration and that was hard to come by in this place, though the presence of his Patronus, standing patiently beside him, helped.

Sirius wasn't so patient, however. "How much longer?" he asked, his voice a low growl. "They've got to be coming for us any minute now!"

"They are," the Patronus said without looking at Sirius. "They are two levels above us and moving as quickly as they can. They will reach this level in perhaps another minute."

"Not much longer," Harry muttered, feeling the metal he was transforming begin to react with his magic. "The plug will fall into the central core, I've angled the edges downward so it will slide loose. And then —"

Well, what _would_ they do then? After Harry took care of the Dementors they would have to move onto the Dementors' nest, where no wards preventing exit from the prison could be active, and create a Portkey that would take them out of here. But where would they go? Harry hadn't really thought that far ahead yet.

The Patronus suddenly turned to face the other end of the block. "Aurors are about to enter this level," it said, calmly. "Harry, you will have to lock the block door —"

"I can't," Harry said. "I'd have to restart this Transfiguration!"

"Hell," Sirius snarled, placing Ginny on the floor. "Keep going, Harry, I'll take care of the Aurors!" He turned and ran unsteadily toward the far end of the cell block.

A ring of dark liquid suddenly appeared in the metal wall, and the circle of metal began sliding away from Harry. It slipped out of the hole and fell, but before it fell out of view it hit bottom and tipped forward, landing with a large _splat_ in a combination of mud and ash. There was a whirl of dozen of black, tattered cloaks as Dementors moved out of the metal cylinder's path.

Behind Harry were growls and shouts of surprise and alarm, but he dared not turn his attention away from the Dementors. "_Go_," he said to his Patronus, his voice shaking. "_Give them the Death they deserve_." It moved forward, past him and into the central core of Azkaban, shining brighter and brighter as Harry's anger was finally released. A sun suddenly blossomed, whiting out everything else from view. Harry held a hand in front of his eyes, noting as he did so that he could see the bones of his hand through his flesh and his eyelids, so bright was his Patronus.

When the brightness faded, Harry's Patronus was gone, but so was the sensation of despair and helplessness that the Patronus had held at bay, and Harry leaned forward through the hole in the wall, seeing nothing in the central core but tattered rags covering a mound of dirt and mud. He looked upward, seeing a triangle of blue far above him; other rags floated high above, but Harry couldn't tell if they were the remains of Dementors or some who had escaped. Either way, they were gone.

There was a groan from the other end of the block. Harry ran toward it, finding Sirius on his hands and knees surrounded by three unconscious Aurors. There was a wand in his hand, apparently taken from one of the Aurors. He looked up at Harry as Harry bent down next to him.

"I guess I've still got it," Sirius croaked as Harry helped him to his feet. "Of course it didn't hurt that they didn't expect a large dog to jump them as they tried to break in here."

"Are you alright?" Harry asked, examining him. Sirius didn't seem harmed except for the knife wound in his side, where Pettigrew had stabbed him.

"Never better," Sirius grinned crookedly. "Can we get the hell out of here now? Did you scare the Dementors off?" He looked through the hole in the wall, then back at Harry, his face white. "Harry, what the hell did you _do_?"

"I destroyed them," Harry told him. "Like I said I would."

"Merlin's pants," Sirius said, staring in wonder at the empty cloaks fluttering about in the now-empty core of Azkaban. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I guess we can leave now."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "I just wish I knew where we should go."

"Oh, I've got that covered," Sirius said, as the two of them moved back toward the hole in the wall. "We'll go to my dear mother's house."

Harry picked up Ginny and he and Sirius stood at the brink of the pit of hell. It was a ten-foot drop to the Dementors' nest. "How do we get down there?" Sirius asked. "I could jump that in my Animagus form."

"Levitation Charm," Harry said. "Think you can lower me and Ginny down?"

"I just beat three Aurors single-handed," Sirius laughed. "A Levitation Charm should be a doss." He pointed his captured wand at Harry and Ginny. "_Wingardium Leviosa_!"

Harry and Ginny lifted off of the floor and floated out into the central core, where they slowly moved down to rest on the circle of steel that moments ago had been part of the walls of Azkaban. Harry let Ginny's feet down, holding her upright with this left arm, and pointed his wand up at Sirius, invoking the Levitation Charm. Sirius floated down to land next to the two of them.

"Right, then," Sirius said as he took something from his pocket. It was a dragon tooth necklace. "One of Aurors was wearing this," he said to Harry. "I knew we'd need something for a Portkey. Hope I can get this right with a stolen wand," he muttered, then tapped the tooth with the wand, saying "_Portus_." The tooth glowed blue momentarily.

"Nothing fancy," he said quickly, holding out the tooth for Harry to touch. "It'll go in five seconds. If I've cast the spell right, we'll find ourselves in —"

A hook grabbed Harry behind his navel, pulling him forward motionlessly into a whirlwind of color and sound, and everything went dark for a not-so-brief instant.

=ooo=

Harry's feet slammed (well, slammed wasn't the right word, the ground was just suddenly _there_) into ground and he staggered, both with sudden disorientation and Ginny's weight in his arms, and he toppled over. He twisted so that Ginny landed on him instead of he on her, and he groaned as her weight knocked the wind out of him. "Ouch," he said, under his breath.

Next to him Sirius, who had fallen over as he reappeared as well, was already getting to his feet. He leaned over Harry, grinning excitedly. "I did it, Harry! We're home!" He reached down and picked Ginny up off him. "Come on, let's get inside before someone begins wondering who we are and how we got here!"

Still holding Ginny, Sirius helped Harry to his feet. The change in his demeanor was remarkable; where he'd been nervous and irritable before, he was now smiling and excited. He led Harry toward one of the houses that lined the square they'd landed in. The house was old — its walls were dirty, the windows covered with dust and grime. They walked up the worn steps and stood in front of the shabby, scratched black door. The only thing on it that appeared new was its doorknocker, which had the appearance of a twisted silver serpent.

"Take her a moment," Sirius said to Harry, indicating Ginny. Harry held her at his side as Sirius took out the wand he'd acquired and tapped the doorknocker once. There were several clicks and a long clatter like a chain being dragged across a floor. The door opened slowly with a creak.

"In we go," Sirius said quickly, taking hold of Ginny so they could walk her inside. "Once we're inside, don't say anything until I tell you it's okay to speak."

What was the big deal about not speaking now that they were inside? Harry wondered, but he kept silent. Sirius waved his wand and gas lamps sputtered and lit, casting dim light along a long hallway of old, peeling wallpaper and rows of old, darkened portraits hung along the walls. The carpet under their feet looked moth-eaten and threadbare. What kind of house was this? Harry wondered. It looked more like some Demented prisoner of Azkaban had tried to fix up a corridor to look like home.

Sirius moved along the hallway, past a pair of dark curtains and a large umbrella stand that looked unsettlingly like a severed troll's leg, then past a staircase that led upward into darkness. Past the stairs was a door, and Sirius led them through it and into a long drawing room. He waved the door shut with his wand, pointed to a lounger where they placed Ginny, then turned and smiled at Harry.

"Welcome to my home, Harry," he said. "Number 12, Grimmauld Place. This was my parents' home until my mother died a few years ago. I inherited it, probably because she never got round to taking me out of my father's will or making one of her own. I left when I was 16. Didn't think I'd ever set foot in the place again, but I guess you should never say never, right?"

"This is your home?" Harry frowned. He could see several problems with this. "Won't the Ministry know to look for you here, once they realize we've escaped?"

Sirius considered that for a several seconds. "I suppose so," he shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea, though, when we needed to get out of Azkaban. My father had a Fidelius Charm placed on the house to keep Ministry people from bothering us, but that was years ago — so many of us became Secret Keepers afterward he died that probably anyone can show up here now."

"A new Fidelius would be a good idea," Harry suggested, "if we can get someone to cast it. We need a place to hide — I can't go home and neither can Ginny."

"I never learned the Fidelius," Sirius muttered. "Too damned complicated for me. I'm better at Charms and Defense magic. D'you know anyone you can trust who can cast it?"

"Hermione could," Harry said, after a second. "But I don't want to drag her into this right now."

"And who's Hermione?" Sirius asked, curiously.

"My wife," Harry said. He gave Sirius a look. "I thought I told you that."

"You told me you were married," Sirius replied. "Not what her name was. Anyone else you can think of?"

"Well — Remus Lupin," Harry said. "But we certainly can't ask _him_."

"We can't?" Sirius was grinning crookedly again. "Why not?"

Harry shook his head, astonished. "Because he's the Chief Warlock of the bloody Wizengamot, that's why not! If he heard from either you or me he'd be obligated to turn us in to the Ministry!"

"Why don't we ask him?" Sirius said, with a smirk. When Harry just shook his head disbelievingly, Sirius walked out of the room. Harry followed hot on his heels, wondering what he would do. Sirius walked up the staircase to the first floor, with Harry behind him staring with some amazement at the heads of house-elves lining the wall. The Blacks beheaded their house-elves?

Sirius strode down the first floor hallway, reaching a door and flinging it open. He walked over to a dresser and rummaged around in one of the drawers, reaching deep into its depths before withdrawing his hand once again and holding it up toward Harry. There was a small, round mirror in it, and Harry knew immediately what he intended. "Wait a minute —" he said, trying to prevent Sirius from using the device, but Sirius just shook his head and spoke into the mirror.

"Moony?" he said. "D'you hear me? We need to talk."

They waited nearly a minute in silence before Sirius shook his head. "Hmph," he said, sounding disappointed. "He must've thrown it away, or broken it or something —"

"Who the hell is this?" a voice said quietly from the mirror. Sirius looked up, grinning at Harry. Harry shook his head warningly — he'd recognized Lupin's voice.

Sirius ignored him and spoke cheerfully into the mirror. "It's Padfoot, you hairy prat, who'd you think was calling you on this mirror?"

"Right," Lupin's voice was dry. "You know there's a report that you and Harry Potter broke out of your cells and you're roaming the corridors of Azkaban attacking all the Aurors."

"It was only three Aurors," Sirius said. "And we're not in Azkaban anymore."

"Really?" Lupin said. "Where are you?"

Harry shook his head frantically. _Don't tell him!_ he mouthed at Sirius.

"Well, I said I'd never darken the door of this place again," Sirius answered, "but I'm back home."

"I see," Lupin said. "So, why are you telling me all this? You know that I'm Chief Warlock now, don't you?"

"Yeah," Sirius nodded. "Harry told me."

"You know I'm supposed to report the whereabouts of any known criminals to the Auror Department, don't you?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know all that," Sirius said impatiently. "But this is _Padfoot_, Moony. You remember the Marauders, don't you?"

Silence from the mirror for some time. "That was a long time ago, Sirius."

"Hmm," Sirius frowned at the mirror. "Maybe it was. Maybe I thought what we all had together would last forever. Maybe I'm wrong about that, Moony, but if you're going to turn us in, at least hear me out about what happened that day back in 1981. I didn't kill Peter, he tricked us all. You never got to hear the entire story, and I'm the only one left of all of us who can tell you."

"What happened to Peter?" Lupin asked.

"He came to visit me in Azkaban."

More silence. "He couldn't have, Sirius. The guards would have recognized him and called the Ministry. He'd have to explain why he was still alive when you supposedly killed him and twelve other people."

"He didn't just walk into the place, Remus." Sirius's voice was hard now. "He was playing some kind of game with Harry. Sneaking into his cell as a rat and pretending to be a voice in Harry's head. I heard Harry talking and went to the window between our cells, and I thought I caught of whiff of Peter. You know I have a good sense of smell. I had the Aurors switch our cells so I could wait for him. When he showed up and changed back to human form beneath my cot, I dragged him out from under it. Harry heard him, he knows he was there, too! Then the rat bastard stabbed me and tried to escape and I —"

"Don't say it," Lupin said quickly. He was silent for several seconds. "You're at your parents' home?"

"Yes."

"Is Harry with you?"

"I'm here, Remus," Harry said into the mirror.

"Okay," Lupin said, sounding relieved at hearing Harry's voice. "There was another report, a woman named Ginny Thomas is missing from her cell, too. They believe you and Sirius broke her out. Is that true?"

"She's here with us," Harry said. "She didn't murder those three Aurors."

"Alright, I'm coming to you," Lupin said. "I'll be there in a few seconds and we'll sort all this out. I hope."


	27. A Horcrux Too Far

**Chapter Twenty-Seven  
><strong>**A Horcrux Too Far****  
><strong>

_Updated_ 4/12/2013

=ooo=

The shadowy image in the mirror faded, leaving Harry staring at his and Sirius's reflections. Sirius put the mirror back in the dresser drawer and said, "We'd better get downstairs before Moony gets here — I don't want him waking my dear mother up."

"I thought your mother was dead —" Harry started to protest, but Sirius put a finger to his lips, signaling for silence as they descended the stairs to the main hallway. He motioned for Harry to follow silently, pointing to the dark curtains as they moved past them. Harry looked at the curtains but didn't see anything unusual about them other than they were the only curtains in the entire hallway and seemed somewhat out of place there.

Before they could reach the front door, however, a loud metal knocking suddenly filled the hallway. "Oh, shit," Sirius muttered as the curtains flew open, revealing a life-sized portrait of a mad-looking old woman who immediately began screaming at them.

"Scum! Filth!" the old woman screeched, and the other portraits in the hallway took up the cry as well. "Half-breeds, mutants, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers —"

"Get the door, Harry!" Sirius shouted. He grabbed the curtains that had flown open, trying to drag them shut again.

"Who is that?!" Harry shouted, trying to cover his ears and hear Sirius's answer at the same time.

"My mother!" Sirius shouted, heaving at the curtains. "GET THE DOOR!"

Harry ran to the door, throwing it open and finding Remus Lupin standing on the other side, wincing at the sudden noise. "Harry! What —"

"Get inside!" Harry shouted, grabbing Remus's arm and dragging him over the threshold. He quickly shut the door behind them and they both hurried down the hallway to where Sirius was still wrestling with the curtains.

"Shut up, you bloody old hag!" Sirius shouted. "Harry, Moony, help me with these curtains!"

The old woman's rheumy eyes finally settled on Sirius's face, and she howled even louder. "YOU!" she screeched, baring her teeth at him. "Blood traitor, shame of my flesh! Be gone from this house, you shame me with your presence here!"

"Get used to it," Sirius muttered as Harry and Remus grabbed one of the curtains and pulled it closed. Sirius dragged the other and the image of the mad old woman disappeared behind the curtains once again. Her screeches and howls ended, leaving a ringing silence in their wake, and Sirius gestured for them to follow him into the drawing room.

In the drawing room Sirius suddenly turned and embraced Lupin, who appeared startled at the gesture. "It's good to see you again, Remus," Sirius said softly. He stepped back after a few seconds, then laughed. "Nice suit, Moony!"

Harry smiled as well. Lupin was dressed in a Muggle business suit, but one that looked more appropriate for a Victorian play than the halls of the Ministry of Magic.

"Nice to see you again, too, Sirius," Lupin was saying, looking slightly affronted by Sirius's laughter. "And I happen to like this style!"

"So did your great, great, grandfather," Sirius snorted.

Lupin shook his head. "I don't have much time, Sirius." He reached into his vest and pulled out three potion vials. "These will help if you're feeling weak from your time in Azkaban," he said, giving one to Harry and Sirius and taking the third over to where Ginny lay. Sirius took a sniff of the potion then shrugged and drank it down. Harry followed suit. The potion seemed to spread through his body, making him feel better, but also sleepier. He resisted the urge to fall asleep — he needed to talk to Lupin about their situation.

Ginny was still only barely conscious. Lupin sat on the lounger next to her and opened the potion vial, pouring its contents gently down her throat. At the same time Harry could feel the tiredness and soreness he'd felt in his limbs began to recede, and the remnants of his depression began to vanish.

Ginny began to stir. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at Lupin. "Where am I?" she asked, looking around the room. Her eyes fell on Harry. "Harry," she said anxiously. "We were in Azkaban, weren't we?"

Harry nodded. "We were, but not anymore. "We're in the house of Sirius Black."

Ginny suddenly tried to sit up. "Sirius Black? The man who betrayed your parents to Voldemort —?"

"Lie back, Mrs. Thomas," Lupin told her. "Give the potion time to work."

"But —" Ginny tried to protest, struggling weakly against Lupin as he held her down.

"It's okay," Harry said soothingly. "Sirius didn't betray my parents, Peter Pettigrew did. Pettigrew visited me in Azkaban, playing mind games with me. Sirius caught him and he confessed. Now we're out of Azkaban and in Sirius's house, and we're staying here until we figure out a way to get rid of Voldemort's last Horcrux." Lupin gave Harry a sharp look but said nothing.

Ginny stopped struggling and lay back, looking at them uncertainly. She shook her head tiredly then suddenly fell asleep.

"What happened?" Harry asked anxiously.

"She's the worst off of the three of you," Lupin said, touching her forehead and neck. "Though you're not very far ahead of her, Harry.

"The potion is making her sleep a while. She'll wake up feeling better and stronger." He stood, facing Harry and Sirius. "Now, we'd better figure out our next move, and quickly. It won't be long before I'm missed at the Ministry." He gave Harry a penetrating look. "And I think I need to hear more about this 'last Horcrux' you mentioned to Mrs. Thomas. Voldemort is supposed to be gone, destroyed in 1998 by _you_, Harry. If you're saying he's still around, that's a cause for grave concern."

"I agree," Harry said earnestly. "But we should think about making ourselves safe from detection before we talk about _that_."

=ooo=

"The Fidelius Charm?" Remus pondered, echoing Harry's request. "It's probably the best option we have, but it's not completely foolproof, you know."

"I know," Harry agreed. "Even if the Ministry can't get in here, they can still stake out the area — they have to know where Sirius's parents used to live."

"I can include the front step in the charm," Lupin suggested. "As long as we Apparate and Disapparate from there when coming and going, no one outside will be able to see you. But you'll have to be careful if you leave the house — there will be a lot of Aurors looking for you once they realize you're not in Azkaban anymore. Which shouldn't be very much longer."

"All the more reason to get the Fidelius in place quickly," Sirius said.

"All right." Lupin stood, taking out his wand. "Have you decided who the Secret Keeper should be?"

"Me, I suppose," Sirius said, shrugging. "My house, after all."

"It might be better to have Remus be the Secret Keeper," Harry suggested. "He's in a better position than you or I are to let anyone else know the secret, Sirius. Or you can both be the Secret Keeper, if you like."

Sirius looked undecided for a moment, but finally shrugged again. "Fine," he said. "Whatever you like. You might as well be Secret Keeper, too. The more the merrier, I say."

"I will be primary, then, I think," Lupin said. "You understand that all of all of us will know the secret as well," he went on, moving to the center of the drawing room. "But only I will be able to inform others of the secret. Sirius, is there anyone else in the house? Have you checked to see if anyone else is here?"

"The place was locked up when we got here," Sirius answered. "The wards were all in place. Nobody's been in the house since my dear mother died, a few years ago."

Lupin looked at him. "Sirius," he said gently. "Your mother died in 1985. It's 2016 — that was over 30 years ago."

"Oh," Sirius said, looking mildly surprised. "That long?

"I told you it's been 35 years that you were in Azkaban!" Harry said.

"The Aurors came and told me she'd died," Sirius said, as if he hadn't heard Harry. "I think they expected me to be sad, or something. I laughed when they told me. I didn't realize it had been so long ago," Sirius muttered, shaking his head. "Over half my life, spent in that prison…"

"I should get started," Lupin said, raising his wand. He began speaking strange words in an unknown tongue, moving his wand in intricate patterns as he did so. Harry watched with interest; the Fidelius was one of the most complicated charms in the wizarding world. It was seldom used because of the burden it placed on the caster — the magical energy needed to maintain it was not insignificant.

Lupin's spellcasting went on for several minutes, and the air in the room began to take on a blueish glow, as if it were being permeated with magic. The blue glow continued to intensify, brighter and brighter, until Lupin suddenly stopped chanting and the blue glow dissipated into the walls, ceiling and floor.

"That should do it," Lupin said, his voice sounded tired, as if that spell had drained him of much energy. "I should get back to the Ministry."

"I still need to talk to you about Voldemort's last Horcrux!" Harry said urgently.

"I'll return when I can," Lupin told him. "And I'll send some food round for you. Build up your strength, all of you. And be careful! The Ministry knows you and Sirius have escaped by now, they will have everyone in wizarding Britain watching for you." He moved down the hallway to the front door, with Harry and Sirius following closely, moving quietly past the moldy velvet curtains lest they awaken Sirius's mother again.

Remus opened the front door, pointing to the stoop just outside. "Beyond that is where the Fidelius ends," he said softly. "If you have to leave, make sure you Apparate to and from there. But try not to leave — I'll be back as soon as I can. Perhaps a day or so." Before Harry or Sirius could say another word he stepped through the door and Disapparated.

Harry turned and gave Sirius an exasperated look. "It's not my fault!" Sirius protested. "_You_ suggested him!"

"No, I suggested we _not_ call him," Harry said. "If the Aurors show up and throw us back in Azkaban, it's your fault." Not that Harry expected that to happen, but Sirius's attitude since they'd gotten out had troubled him some — he was taking risks even Harry would have considered much more carefully. If he'd been given time.

"Pfft," Sirius scoffed. "Moony won't turn us in. He was my second-best mate in the world, next to your father." Sirius folded his arms across his chest. "He wouldn't turn us in to the Wizengamot, Chief Warlock or not," he declared confidently.

"I hope you're right," Harry said. "I'm starting to get hungry."

=ooo=

As it turned out, however, the Black residence had _already_ been infiltrated. The Auror assigned to follow the Chief Warlock whenever he left had followed him here on a hunch, concealed in the ill kept, overgrown shrubbery of Grimmauld Square, and had approached the front door after he had disappeared inside.

There would be very little reason for Remus Lupin to enter the Black home, a residence that had sat vacant for more than 20 years, unless someone he knew was inside. Lupin had been friends with James Potter, who was dead, with Peter Pettigrew, also dead, and Sirius Black, until very recently a prisoner at Azkaban Prison. Now, it appeared, both Black and another prisoner, Harry Potter, had escaped the prison somehow, along with a third person, Ginny Weasley Thomas.

Details on that were sketchy, the Auror ruminated, approaching the front door of the Black residence. A veteran of 22 years in the department, the Auror was one of the relatively few Aurors that could see number 12, Grimmauld Place, being rather acquainted with the Black family. With high marks in Concealment and Disguise in Auror aptitude testing, she had been hand-picked by Head Auror Malfoy to shadow Chief Warlock Lupin whenever he chose to leave the Ministry HQ without notifying the Auror Department. That rarely happened, so it was quite exciting when she'd been alerted that he was leaving HQ with no itinerary on file.

With no idea where he might be going, the usual procedure was to Time-turn back an hour and observe the Chief Warlock's activities during that time. Even with the current state-of-the-art Invisibility Cloaks, it was extremely difficult to sneak into the office of the Chief Warlock without being detected. Fortunately, with a Time-Turner it was a simple matter to go back three more hours, then enter Lupin's office before he arrived that morning and set up wards to avoid detection. If Lupin ever cast spells checking for invisible, concealed and warded people in his office, the game would likely be up. Lupin seemed to be the trusting sort, however; not the best attitude for a Chief Warlock to take, in the Auror's estimation, considering how cautious Malfoy was about the activities of the other higher-ups in Ministry.

Once in the office and hidden it was just a matter of waiting until Lupin arrived and began going about his business: mostly routine parchment-pushing, owl posts to several members of the Wizengamot advising them of meeting agendas, and so on.

Then the news that Azkaban had apparently been breached by unknown intruders, followed shortly by news that Black and Potter were no longer in their cells. Lupin had appeared surprised but unconcerned by the news — he seemed not to expect it, but that may have been mere affectation.

The tell came only a minute before he left the building. He had stopped in the midst of writing a post to the Auror Department asking for an update on the status at Azkaban, then reached into his robes and drew out a small object that fit in his hand — the Auror could just make out that it was a small, round mirror. The Auror could see him speaking into it, though no sound could be heard. A Silencing Charm, obviously. A few seconds later he put the object back in his robes and swept from his office. The Auror, still beneath her Invisibility Cloak, followed at a safe distance beyond the Chief Warlock's personal detection spells.

The mirror was something new, the Auror realized; no one had ever mentioned seeing the Chief Warlock with it before now. Therefore it was reasonable to conclude that whomever he had communicated with, he had not done so in a long time. It was also known that Lupin had been friends with Sirius Black at Hogwarts — they had been in the same year along with James Potter. Lupin had also met Harry Potter during the boy's first year at school, and later when he taught at there for Potter's third year.

In the Atrium, Lupin headed for an outgoing fireplace, one not often taken by other Ministry personnel as it delivered the traveler to a small office near 10 Downing Street, the offices of the Muggle Prime Minister. The Auror hesitated, not sure how long to wait before following; the office where the Floo connected was not manned by wizard or Muggle, but Lupin might tarry there before leaving or Apparating away. But she would have to chance at least a look before she leapt. She leaned into the green flames, taking a quick peek at the office. It was empty; Lupin had moved on. She stepped through into the office, then Apparated, on a hunch, to Grimmauld Square.

And sure enough, there was Lupin, now out of his wizard's robes and dressed in an old-style Muggle suit, walking up the steps of number 12, Grimmauld Place. He knocked on the door, and a moments later the door flew open and an arm dragged him inside. Still under the Invisibility Cloak, the Auror approached the house, moving slowly up the step until she stood just in front of the old, peeling door. She cast a few detection spells, but the door had not been Imperturbed or even locked. That was an oversight she could exploit. With a wave of her wand the door slowly opened and she slipped inside.

The hallway inside was the same as she remembered it — dark, musty and shabby-looking. There were indistinct voices coming from the far end of the house, from one of the rooms off the main hallway. That would be Lupin and whoever he was meeting here. The Auror cast her eyes about, looking for someplace she might hide and formulate a plan, and remembered that a nearby door was a coat cupboard. She slipped inside.

Infiltrating Grimmauld Place may not have been what Malfoy intended when he assigned her to follow Lupin, but it could have interesting consequences. Bringing in Sirius Black and Harry Potter would have far-reaching consequences for her career now. And things would not go well for the Chief Warlock if he was somehow connected to their escape. Unless he was here to capture them himself… but that didn't seem to be why he'd come here. He could be helping them after the fact, which wouldn't go over well with the Wizengamot, either — not unless there was good reason. But what good reason could there be?

Something was happening around her, she realized with a start. The walls were beginning to glow — someone was casting a powerful spell on the house! She recognized the spell effect — it was the Fidelius Charm. The Auror smiled. It was ironic that she was unknowingly being included in the spell, since it was likely meant to keep people like her out of Grimmauld Place!

The glow faded, leaving a tingling sensation on her skin. She was now one of the Secret Keepers of the Fidelius that had just been cast, though only the primary Secret Keeper could pass the secret on to others. She wouldn't have to do that, though, not if she could capture Black and Potter and bring them back to the Ministry.

Voices at the far end of the hallway again, and she could hear someone approaching. They stopped just outside the cupboard, and for a moment she wondered if she'd given herself away, or they had somehow detected her. But she heard Lupin's voice warning them about the boundaries of the Fidelius, and telling them he'd be back within a day or so. He stepped outside and with a soft _pop_ Disapparated away.

The next voices she heard made her smile broadly to herself. Black and Potter were arguing just outside the cupboard door!

"He wouldn't turn us in to the Wizengamot, Chief Warlock or not," she heard Black say.

"I hope you're right," Potter replied. "I'm starting to get hungry." The two men moved away, back down the corridor, and the Auror thought of a plan — a rather bold plan, but they would be expecting her back at the Ministry as well, to report on where Lupin had gone, and if she wanted to show up with the two escapees from Azkaban she'd have to work fast. Malfoy would either sack her or give her an Order of Merlin, but whatever happened she was bringing these two in.

One could Apparate within Grimmauld Place, but there were anti-Apparition and anti-Portkey wards placed on the walls, the roof and beneath the basement foundation, all keyed to allow outward passage by members of the House of Black. She was covered there, but _anyone_, even family members, Apparating or Portkeying from the outside would set off alarms. Well, she would just have to make sure they would let her in when she returned. Still under the Cloak, she turned on her heel and disappeared from the cupboard.

=ooo=

Harry and Sirius returned to the drawing room, where they found Ginny still sleeping. Harry dropped into a chair next to her, feeling her forehead and checking her pulse. She seemed to be breathing okay.

"We may have to chance going out for something to eat," he said to Sirius, still leaning over Ginny. "I want to have something for her to eat if she wakes up before Remus gets back."

"There were a couple of corner shops in the area when I lived here," Sirius commented.

"Which you haven't since the 70's," Harry retorted. "After 40-odd years I'd be surprised if any of them were still around."

"I can go sniff out some," Sirius said, smiling. "If you catch my point."

"I catch it," Harry replied. "And I'd bet the Aurors you attacked back in Azkaban did, too. The Ministry has to know by now that you're still an Animagus. They'll be watching for that dog. It doesn't exactly blend into the background well, does it?"

"Hey, I can be stealthy," Sirius growled. He transformed into his Animagus form, then got down on the floor and began crawling forward as if being sneaky. He crawled up next to the lounger where Ginny lay sleeping before turning back into himself. "See?" he grinned.

"Very impressive," Harry said, not meaning it. "Like watching a big black cloud trying pretend it's a fogbank." Sirius snorted, affronted.

"Well, that leaves _you_," Sirius pointed out. "I suppose you think you can get out and come back with food without a squad of Hit Wizards surrounding and capturing you?"

"I think I have a better chance than you," Harry replied. "You haven't been outside of Azkaban for 35 years — a lot of things have changed in that time, even in the wizarding world."

"Such as?" Sirius prompted in a challenging tone.

"Well, credit cards, debit cards, bitcoin cards," Harry named off a few current alternatives to money. "The Internet. Phones you can carry around with you, with high-resolution cameras in them. Your picture could be on the Internet the minute you walk into some corner grocery."

Sirius shook his head blankly. "I have no idea what any of that meant," he said. "All right, then. Let's say you're going after the food. What are _you_ using for money?"

Harry looked around. "There's bound to be some money hidden around here, don't you think? Wouldn't your mother or other members of your family keep a hidden safe filled with Galleons?"

Sirius heaved a sigh filled with weariness. "The Aurors in Azkaban told me what happened after my dear mother died. Anyone at the Ministry who could find this place showed up and went through it with a fine-toothed comb. They cleared out every item in here that had even a bit of value. That's how I found out about that picture in the hallway — they told me it screamed at them to get out of her house, and it had a Permanent Sticking Charm on it, so they couldn't remove it. They put up the curtains over it and tiptoed around it while they cleared the house out. The only thing left when they were through was my mother's old house-elf, Kreacher; I'd wager its corpse is rotting away somewhere downstairs right now. So if there ever was a safe, Harry, it's long gone by now."

Harry scratched the back of his head, thinking. "Well, I may have to go to a Muggle grocer and nick a few things, enough to get by for a day or so, and have Remus go back and reimburse them when he returns. That's better than just sitting around hungry for the next day or —"

There was a knock on the front door.

Harry and Sirius both froze. Only they, Ginny and Remus could find Grimmauld Place now that the Fidelius was cast, so who could that be? The knock came again. Sirius shrugged, then he walked out into the hallway toward the front door, with Harry following, his wand in his hand.

Sirius paused at the front door, waiting until Harry arrived and stood poised with his wand at the ready. Sirius pulled open the door.

Remus Lupin was on the front stoop, bags of food items in his hands. "I'm back," he said. "I decided you needed food right away, and I didn't want you going out on your own after it." He smiled. "I hope you don't mind."

Harry and Sirius were simply staring at him. After a moment Remus looked around a bit self-consciously. "Do you mind if I come in?" he asked, a bit plaintively.

Harry lowered his wand and stepped back. "Er — sure, come in! We were just thinking of getting something but I'm glad you fixed that problem for us."

Lupin stepped inside and Sirius shut the door behind him. "Sorry about that," Lupin said softly as they walked down the hallway. They moved silently past the velvet curtains covering the portrait of Sirius's mother, then down the steps at the back of the hall to the basement kitchen, a cavernous room with rough stone walls covered in cupboards and counter tops with many drawers; above them iron and copper pots and pans hung from a rack suspended from the ceiling. There was a large, old wooden table in the middle of the room and a number of chairs along it.

Lupin set the box of food down on a countertop and turned to them. "Are you hungry?" he asked. "I can help whip something up before I go back. Ouch," he added as his foot hit the leg of a chair. "Clumsy of me."

"I can eat something," Harry said, rubbing his stomach. It had been a long time since he'd had a good meal. He sat down on one of the chairs around the table. Sirius just leaned back against the table itself, watching Lupin. "What have you got?"

Remus rummaged through the box of food he'd brought. "Let's see, there's some cans of stew, some cans of baked beans — I also got some bread for the beans. Oh, and a box of tea, of course."

"No butterbeer?" Sirius asked, disappointed. "Moony, how could you forget butterbeer?"

"Tea's better for you anyway," Lupin said without looking at Sirius. "What do you think, Harry, shall we whip up some stew?"

Harry nodded. "Sounds good." He stood up. "You want some help?"

"No, I'll do it," Lupin said pleasantly, gesturing him back in his chair. "You two have been through a lot — it's the least I can do for you." A pot floated off the ceiling rack and onto a hook in the fireplace. A flame lit beneath the pot, and Lupin put two cans of stew into it. A kettle floated over to the fireplace as well. A cupboard opened, then a drawer, and plates and silverware floated onto the table, arranging themselves into two place settings. "You'll have something to eat in just a few minutes," Lupin continued, opening another cupboard and getting three teacups from it.

"You're pretty good at this, Moony," Sirius observed, still leaning against the table.

"I've done this often enough for myself," Lupin said absently, opening the box of tea and taking out several tea bags. "Living alone, you get pretty proficient at cooking simple meals for yourself. Why don't you and Harry get washed up while I finish the stew?"

Sirius gestured for Harry to follow. Just outside the kitchen was another room with a sink and an old, cracked bar of soap. There was also a toilet in the corner but Harry decided that after decades of non-use he didn't want to find out what it looked like.

Sirius stepped over to the sink, holding his hands under the single faucet and saying "On." Water poured from the faucet, but Sirius's hands were barely wet before he pulled them away and shook them. He stepped away so Harry could use the sink, then pulled out his wand and cast a Silencing Charm.

"What do you think of Moony?" he asked Harry in a low voice as Harry let the cold water run over his hands.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You mean right now?" he asked. "I dunno, he seems okay. He's doing a pretty good job of making dinner for us. He knows your kitchen pretty well."

"Yeah," Sirius nodded, his expression intense. "Almost two well. He knows it better than I do. I only ever came down here to nick food."

"You suspect him?" Harry asked, surprised. "That's something _I_ should be doing, Sirius — I kept expecting him to turn us in any moment, but he's had ample opportunity to do that already."

"Something doesn't smell right," Sirius insisted. "I mean that literally. His scent's familiar but not exactly right."

"You think you'd remember it exactly after 35 years?" Harry asked.

"I should have smelled him closer when he first arrived," Sirius berated himself. "But I thought it would look like I didn't trust him!"

"And now you _don't_?" Harry pointed out. "I suppose it's possible an Auror had time to Polyjuice himself and exchange clothes with Lupin. "I can check that with a Polyjuice Reversal spell. I should be able to cast it non-verbally. You keep your wand at the ready in case he changes into someone else."

"Sounds like a plan," Sirius agreed grimly, and he canceled his Silencing spell as they walked back into the kitchen, where Lupin was just ladling steaming stew onto their plates.

"Smells delicious," Harry said, letting Sirius go ahead to distract Lupin. If nothing happened when he cast this spell it would be embarrassing, but if he _did_ change there would be a lot of spells flying in the next few seconds.

"You two grab a seat," Lupin said, pouring hot water into the teacups. "I'll just have some tea. I do need to get back to the Ministry soon, but I can stay for a few more minutes — watch it, Sirius!"

Sirius had reached out toward his plate of stew, his hand grazing the nearby cup of tea and knocking it over. Both men pulled out their wands. "I've got it!" Sirius said quickly, and he gestured at the hot water spilled across the table, which Vanished.

At the same moment, with the Chief Warlock's attention thus diverted, Harry pointed his wand at Lupin, silently invoking _Polyfluis Reverso_.

Nothing happened.

After a moment Lupin turned to look at Harry, an amused expression on his face. "Wasn't sure it was me, Harry?" he asked, smiling. "Didn't we discuss using questions involving specific events in our past to verify identity?"

"I remember," Harry said, chagrinned, lowering his wand as he spoke. "But we also noted that method of verification doesn't always work."

"True," Lupin said, summoning the kettle again and refilling Sirius's cup. "Even so, would you like to ask me any questions now?"

"Not right now," Harry muttered. "Maybe next time." He sat down at the table, smelling the plate of stew in front of him. The aroma was making him want to drool like Pavlov's Dog.

"Just being cautious, Moony," Sirius said by way of an apology. He was steeping the tea in the hot water Lupin had just poured for him. "I don't know why, but I can't quite place your scent."

Lupin shrugged. "It's been a while, I suppose." He gestured towards the other empty chair. "Eat up, Harry before your stew gets cold."

"I wouldn't, Harry," Lupin's voice said before Harry could move — but from _behind_ him. The Lupin in front of him was spinning toward the sound of the voice, his wand out and aiming past Harry.

Harry ducked automatically, leaning out of the line of fire. Lupin's wand suddenly flew out of his hand, over Harry's head and toward the kitchen entrance, where it was caught by — Remus Lupin, dressed exactly like the Lupin in front of them.

The Lupin at the table spun back toward Sirius, reaching for the wand in his hand, but suddenly froze in place. Sirius jerked back, but the attack was over — Lupin wasn't moving at all.

Sirius stared in astonishment at the frozen Lupin, then glared at the other one. "Moony, what the _hell_?"

"Sorry about that," Lupin said, entering the kitchen and walking up to his motionless doppelganger. "This is my Ministry shadow, an Auror that follows me whenever I leave the HQ. I didn't expect her to actually figure out where I'd gone this time. Apparently I underestimated her."

"Her?" Harry was staring closely at the frozen Lupin's face. "This is a woman? Why didn't my Polyjuice Reversal spell work on her?"

"Because she's _not_ Polyjuiced," Lupin made simple but surprising reply. "She's a rare one, a Metamorphmagus. Sirius, meet your cousin, Miss Nymphadora Tonks."

"Oh?" Sirius turned to look at the motionless form. "This is little Nymphadora? Ted and Andromeda's girl? And an Auror, too? Impressive. I really thought we'd blown it when Harry cast that spell and nothing happened!"

"You nearly blew it anyway," Lupin said, dryly. "She put Sleeping Potion in your stew. You and Harry would have been asleep inside a minute if you'd started eating." He pointed his wand at the pot and plates and the stew Vanished. "If you two would each take hold of her, I'll make sure she's immobilized." He then pointed his wand at Tonks and ropes shot from the tip, binding her arms at her sides and her legs together.

Lupin's form teetered, about to fall, but Harry and Sirius held her up, then sat her down in one of the chairs. Sirius stared at the frozen form for several seconds, then back at Lupin. "How'd she get past your Fidelius, Moony?"

"She was already inside when I began casting the spell," Lupin said ruefully. "I should have checked the house more thoroughly. I felt her presence as the spell took effect — she knows the secret as well, now. That could complicate things a bit."

"Really? You think?" Harry snorted. "It complicates things _quite_ a bit!" He tried to continue but Lupin put up a hand for silence. He then waved his wand a final time, and Tonks's head jerked as the Body-Bind spell ended. She looked up at Lupin, her features still a perfect copy of his own, then suddenly transformed into a pretty, heart-faced woman with pink shoulder-length hair.

"How did you know I was following you?" she asked, frowning. "You never seemed to notice me before."

"I've known for quite some time, Auror Tonks," Lupin said mildly. "There was no need for me to let you know _I_ knew, not when Malfoy would just come up with some other way to keep tabs on me."

"Well, you're in for it _now_," Tonks said in a dangerous tone. "Kidnapping an Auror, aiding and abetting escapees from Azkaban. Minister Malfoy will have a field day bringing this before the Wizengamot! He's likely to try and have you deposed as Chief Warlock, the first time in history that's happened!"

"We're both innocent," Harry said quickly.

"Sure you are," Tonks said sarcastically. "That's why I'm tied up and your prisoner, right?" She wriggled in her chair, but the ropes held fast. "And by the way," she growled at Sirius, "_don't_ call me Nymphadora."

Sirius smiled at her. "I've seen you naked, you know," he said, pleasantly. "Of course you were only about a year old —"

"Never mind, Sirius," Lupin said wearily. To Tonks he said, "I believe Veritaserum will prove Sirius's innocence. From what I've read in the Wizengamot's records he was never given a real trial — the Aurors' testimony was considered sufficient at the time."

"Right," Sirius nodded grimly. "Bastards. No offense, cousin," he added to Tonks.

"And what about Potter?" Tonks asked Lupin pointedly, ignoring Sirius. "_You_ presided over his trial, Chief Warlock — are you going to tell the Wizengamot you let them send an innocent man to Azkaban?"

"I was False-Memory Charmed," Harry told her. Tonks just rolled her eyes.

"Oh! Never thought of that!" she sneered. "I wonder how you're going to prove it? Know who False-Memory Charmed you, do you?"

"Actually, I do," Harry said. "It was Voldemort."

There was a somewhat protracted silence.

"Seriously?" Tonks finally said. "You're playing the Voldemort card _again_?" She looked at Lupin. "And _you're_ going along with this?"

"I haven't heard the details yet," Lupin admitted. "But at the moment I have no reason to believe Harry isn't being sincere in his claim. We were never able to conclusively establish how many Horcruxes he created."

"Maybe, but how do you know Potter hasn't been False-Memory Charmed?" Tonks asked, sarcastically.

"Touché," Lupin smiled.

"Well then, _seriously_, how do you KNOW?!" Tonks exploded. "Voldemort is supposed to be dead. REALLY dead, not just 'Oh-he-might-come-back-again-someday' dead. Potter could be making all this up — you know he learned Occlumency in his _first year_ at Hogwarts!"  
>"I know it sounds unbelievable —" Harry began.<p>

"Sounds?" Tonks snorted. "It _sounds_ like you've gone round the twist, mate! Nobody's going to believe Voldemort is still alive, especially those morons in the Wizengamot these days! They won't _want_ to!"

"It's probably worse than you think, then," Harry said sardonically. "Because Voldemort has possessed the body of Draco Malfoy."

Tonks hair turned violent purple. Lupin sighed.

"Harry," Lupin said. "I wish you'd told me that earlier."

"So you see what I mean!" Tonks said, nearly shouting now. "He's barking! We all know about the running feud Malfoy and Potter have had over the years. It's a transparent attempt to discredit the new Minister!"

"It's certainly going to appear that way," Lupin muttered, almost to himself. To Harry he said, "Do you have some way to prove this accusation against Minister Malfoy, Harry?"

"I'm not sure yet," Harry replied honestly. "I wanted some time to think about it — that's why I wanted you to set up the Fidelius, so we'd have time to come up with a way to prove both Sirius and I are innocent."

"There is a way," Lupin said thoughtfully. "If you still have the Marauder's Map."

Harry's eyes lit up. "Of course!" he said excitedly. "We'd have to get Malfoy into Hogwarts, but once he was there the Map would show both him and Tom Riddle in the exact same location!" His face fell. "But I have no idea where the Map is. The last person who had it was Ginny, and Voldemort was possessing her at the time. _But_," he recalled. "When James Monroe and I were there last, Neville told me he'd put in a security system from Fred and George that was based on the magic of the Marauder's Map! Would that work, do you think?"

Lupin rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. "If they were able to accurately reproduce the Map's magic it might identify if Voldemort were inhabiting the body of Minister Malfoy, but I don't believe that's possible."

"Why not?" Harry asked, curiously. "I thought you, James and Sirius _created_ the Map."

Remus looked rather sheepish. "Actually, we didn't. We just found it — in the Room of Requirement."

"_Oh_." That explained a _lot_, Harry thought. But— "Wait a minute. It says right on the Map when you activate it, '_Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are proud to present_' —"

Remus shrugged. "We were looking for a place we could hole up and plan pranks, away from Snape, who always seemed to follow us around spying on us —"

"That was bloody annoying, too," Sirius added with a growl.

"— and we stumbled across the Room one night. Ironically it was Pettigrew who first found it. While we were in there I said we needed a way to find out where everyone in the castle was so we could plan our pranks more effectively, and the Map appeared on table, with a piece of parchment telling us how it worked."

"It was a thing of beauty," Sirius said, smiling reminiscently. "Our nicknames appearing on it each time it came on, and if you didn't know how to activate it, it would deliver personal insults until you gave up."

"That's why I don't think the Weasleys' security system can do everything the Marauder's Map can do," Remus explained. "Neither James nor I ever fully figured out the magic behind it — it's probably protected by the Interdict of Merlin, like most of the magic at Hogwarts."

"It's going to be quite entertaining listening to you explain all this to the Wizengamot," Tonks commented, dryly. "Attempting to access forbidden magic — and I think we just heard a confession a minute ago about who was sneaking around in Hogwarts and the Chamber of Secrets without Ministry permission a few months back."

"You're taking all of this out of context," Harry complained. "You need to think about what we're telling you calmly and rationally."

"While I'm tied to a chair?" Tonks sneered. "You need to either let me go or kill me. You might get a bit of leniency that first way. Otherwise you and Sirius are likely to be Kissed, and Chief Warlock Lupin will end up in Azkaban for life."

"Nobody's going to kill you, Ny — Tonks. " Sirius said in a stern tone.

"But we can't just let you go, either," Harry added. "I think you need to hear what I'm going to tell Remus about Voldemort's last Horcrux."

Tonks glanced down at the ropes binding her. "Like this?" she asked, pointedly.

"If you'll promise not to try and run," Remus warned. "And if you'll listen to Harry's story with an open mind, I'll remove them. We might be able to use your expertise, in fact."

"_My_ expertise?" Tonks looked both surprised and amused. "You're the Chief Warlock, Mr. Lupin."

"You have Auror Training and more than 20 years of experience," Remus reminded her. "Your views are bound to be different than Harry's or mine."

"Fine, I won't try to escape," Tonks agreed, though Harry didn't care for the flippant tone she used. "At least, not until you give me a clear opportunity."

"Agreed," Lupin smiled. He waved a hand and the ropes binding the Auror disappeared.

"Wandless," Tonks noted. "Pretty impressive."

"Practice makes perfect," Remus replied, proving that even brilliant wizards weren't impervious to clichéd phrases. "Alright, Harry, let's hear about this 'last Horcrux of Voldemort'."

Harry dropped into the chair next to Tonks. He sensed he'd have to convince her most with what he was going to say. "In 1973 the United States launched a probe, Pioneer 11, that was designed to travel to and explore the outer solar system." Three blank looks were showing on the faces of Remus, Sirius and Tonks. "Well, Voldemort told me that he snuck into NASA and cast a spell on part of the probe that would make it last a lot longer than it otherwise would."

"You're suggesting he cast the spell that prepares an object to be a Horcrux," Remus said. Tonks frowned. Sirius had an expression of concentration on his face, as if he was trying to understand the underlying meaning of Harry's words.

"So you think he made a Horcrux of part of this Pioneer 11," Remus concluded. "I have to admit, that's a rather brilliant idea."

"You need a victim to make a Horcrux," Tonks objected. "Did he kill someone at this 'NASA'?"

Harry shook his head. "You don't need to kill," he disagreed. "He told me."

"But killing tears the soul so a fragment can be placed in the Horcrux," Lupin reminded him. "You _have_ to kill to create a Horcrux!"

"No," Harry said. He stood and took out the wand he had, pointing it across the table. "_Expecto Patronum_!"

A silvery image formed, an image of Harry himself. Tonks and Lupin both stared in fascination. "Albus told me about your Patronus, Harry," Remus said. "But he never said it was so much like you."

"I am pleased to meet you at last, Chief Warlock," the Patronus said to Remus, bowing slightly. Remus seemed taken aback.

"Why'd you make it say that?" Tonks asked Harry sharply.

"I speak for myself, Ms. Tonks," the Patronus answered her. "Harry spoke the truth about Horcruxes — a wizard does not have to kill to create one. You simply send your Patronus into an object prepared to become a Horcrux. There are four statues in Hogwarts that prove this — they are the four Founders."

"Godric Gryffindor could not produce a Patronus," Tonks said adamantly. "He _told_ people he couldn't!"

"He may have been the first to create a Patronus like me," the Patronus replied. "In his own image. Eventually the other Founders learned as well."

"No, no!" Tonks shook her head disbelievingly. "You're lying, Potter!" She looked badly shaken by the idea of a _human_ Patronus. "This is something else — the ghost of your father, maybe. I don't know!"

"It's no ghost," Remus said abruptly. "Tonks, you should know better — ghosts are transparent. This is really Harry's Patronus."

"I am," the Patronus said.

"Alright," Tonks said at last. "Let's agree you are, for now. So what about this Pioneer thingy — if it's really Voldemort's last Horcrux, how do we destroy it? Where is it now?"

"It's about 95 A.U.s that way," Harry said, pointing upward. "I told you, NASA launched it into space back in 1973!"

Remus's face was white, but Tonks didn't seem to understand. "That doesn't make sense," she argued. "It's only been 'launched' for 33 years, how far could it get in that time?"

"It was meant to leave the _solar system_," Harry emphasized. "If you're thinking it's in orbit about Earth or one of the other planets, get over thinking that! There's no way we'll be able to catch it after all these years!"

"What about your silver doppelganger here?" Tonks jerked her head toward Harry's Patronus. "Patronuses can travel very fast, can't they? Why don't you send it to see what's going on with this Pioneer thing?"

Harry, Remus and Sirius all turned to the Patronus. "Could you make it that far?" Harry asked it. "Quirrell was able to see surrounding space through the plaque attached to it."

"Quirrell created a synchronicity with the Horcrux," the Patronus answered. "He did not actually travel there. But I can try." The Patronus abruptly disappeared.

"Even if it can _get_ there," Sirius wondered aloud. "What's it going to _do_? I mean, it might be able to destroy Dementors but this Pioneer spaceship or whatever is just some kind of Muggle machine, isn't it?"

"Destroy _Dementors_?" Tonks looked surprised. "I thought the reports from Azkaban were exaggerating that — you _can't_ destroy a Dementor."

"I can," Harry said. "I did it back in 1992, when I cast my True Patronus for the first time. And I took out the rest of them when we broke out."

Tonks was looking at him in horror. "You destroyed _all_ the Dementors?! How are we going to control the prisoners?!" she shouted.

"I hope more humanely than the Ministry has so far!" Harry snapped back at her. "Ginny was nearly _dead_ only a month after she went in there!"

Tonks was silent for several seconds. "You can't blame them," she said at last. "She killed three Aurors, as far as they knew."

"I think I _can_ blame them," Harry replied, his tone flinty. "The Aurors there are supposed to guard her, not judge her."

"This isn't really getting us anywhere," Sirius said, the voice of reason for once. "What are we supposed to do about this — this Pioneer Horcrux, or whatever it is, and about Malfoy being Voldemort?"

"There's not much you can do about either," Tonks said, matter-of-factly. "If that Pioneer thing is 95 A.U.s away it's beyond any wizard's ability to retrieve it. Hell, even if _every wizard on Earth_ tried to _Accio_ it we probably couldn't pull it back. If your Super-Patronus can't get that far, Potter, I don't know what you'll do about that."

"But we do have a way to prove Voldemort is in Malfoy!" Harry said, fiercely. "We just have to find the Marauder's Map!"

"Which could be anywhere," Remus said, softly. "It might even be destroyed, if Harry's right and Voldemort got a hold of it, knowing it could identify him."

"_That's_ a bugger," Sirius swore. "Moony, is there any other way we could tell if someone was possessing Malfoy?"

"It's nearly impossible," Remus shook his head. "Either the possessed has no knowledge that someone has possessed them, or they are a willing participant, like Quirrell was."

"Quirrell was more than willing," Harry stated. "He and Voldemort had fused their minds together, along with the mind of David Monroe." When Remus stared at him in shock, he added, "He told me what had happened between Riddle and Monroe, back in the 70's, and how Quirrell had found his wand in the ruins of my parents' home. His wand is a Horcrux, too."

"How do you know that?" Tonks demanded.

"He told me," Harry replied simply. "He was certain this time he had me in a box I couldn't get out of. My strength and intelligence have been halved, I was False-Memory Charmed to believe I'd murdered James Monroe, and he was going to possess the second most powerful man in the Ministry, who's since become the Minister of Magic. I think he thought he'd earned some bragging rights —"

A burst of light suddenly illuminated the room as Harry's Patronus reappeared. "I could not reach Pioneer 11," the Patronus told Harry in a flat tone. I was somewhere past the orbit of Pluto before I began to dim dangerously low. Had I continued I would have gone out entirely. I am…sorry, Harry."

Harry nodded, and the Patronus faded from view. "I don't know where that leaves us," he said, expressionlessly. "As long as any Horcrux exists Voldemort can link his mind with it and remain alive even if his body is destroyed. My Patronus couldn't reach it but he proved to me he was linked to it a long time ago." He turned to Remus with a look of near-pleading. "I have to do _something_ to stop him, Remus!"

But Tonks replied first. "Who do you want to stop? Voldemort — or Malfoy?"

"Of _course_ Voldemort!" Harry snapped. "Malfoy is small potatoes compared to Voldemort!"

"Of course they conveniently inhabit the same body now, according to you," Tonks sneered.

"You can believe what you want about me and Malfoy," Harry said to her, shaking his head. "But _this_ is about dealing with Voldemort, who should have been defeated decades ago!"

"And whose fault is it he _wasn't_?" Tonks retorted, hotly. "You've practically made 'defeating Voldemort' your career!"

"Tonks!" Remus said, warningly. Sirius was staring at her, gobsmacked.

But Harry was waving off their protests. "Alright, alright," he said in a calmer tone. "I'll grant that if I'd understood more clearly how Horcruxes worked we might not be dealing with this now. But _nobody_ really knew how they did work until now, and Voldemort only told me because he thought Obliviating me afterward would keep his secret safe.

"What neither he nor I expected was that my Patronus would remember things _I'd_ forgotten," Harry finished. "But now that I do remember, I'm going to find a way to destroy all of his Horcruxes and make sure he's defeated once and for all!"

"Huzzah and all that rot," Tonks said in a bored tone. "But you're still going to have to prove Voldemort is back and inside Minister Malfoy before you can do anything about it, and from what Remus says —"

"_Remus_?" Sirius echoed, looking at Lupin with a raised eyebrow and a leer.

"— that's going to be difficult without that magical Map you've been on about," Tonks continued, ignoring Sirius again.

"I don't think he would have destroyed the Map," Harry muttered, his brow furrowed in concentration. "If he plans to eventually control the Ministry, taking over Hogwarts will be part of that, and the Map could be very useful for keeping track of unruly or rebellious students. The question is, _where_ is he keeping it now?"

Tonks was staring at him thoughtfully, her fingers idly drumming the table. "I think," she said slowly. "I can help you a bit there. I was called into Malfoy's office to give an update on the Chief Warlock's activities for the week and saw a large piece of parchment on his desk partially covered by other documents. He tapped it with his wand as I entered his office and it looked as if some diagrams on it disappeared. Does that sound like that Map of yours?"

"It does," Harry said excitedly. "You have to tap it with your wand and give a code phrase to activate and deactivate it!"

"If he said anything I didn't hear it," Tonks added. "But he could have done it nonverbally, I suppose. Or he might have had a Silencing Charm in effect before I entered."

"We always said the words aloud," Sirius volunteered. "Seemed more exciting that way."

"Now," Tonks leaned toward Remus, her expression serious. "You should probably think about letting me go before I'm missed at the Ministry. I can give Potter and Black some time before they turn themselves in and you bring your allegations to the Wizengamot, but they can't remain free much longer."

"I think that's a good idea," Remus nodded.

"But I don't," Harry said.

"I don't want to go back to Azkaban," Sirius added. "Freedom feels good."

"We can't keep her here," Remus protested. "She _is_ an Auror, after all!"

"And I can't do anything about Voldemort if I'm locked up in Azkaban!" Harry said. "She's already told us she's going to turn us in within a day. That's going to include _you_ too, for 'aiding and abetting'."

"You need to think straighter, Potter," Tonks admonished. "We can't let just you roam around London trying to find Voldemort or this 'Marauder's Map' you're on about!"

"What about _you_?" Harry suddenly asked. "Could you get into Malfoy's office and find that Map? It's got to be hidden there!"

Tonks stared at him in shock. "What, me sneak into the Head Auror and Minister of Magic's office and try to rumble your magic map? Are you _mad_, Potter? Even if it happens to be there, if I get caught in Malfoy's office _I'm_ likely to go to Azkaban! At the very _least_ I'm sacked and run out of Britain! There's no bloody way!"

"Then I'll have to do it," Harry said determinedly. "We need the Map to prove that Voldemort's possessing Malfoy."

"Harry," Remus was shaking his head. "That's an ill-considered plan, in my opinion. You need rest and recuperation before you go off half-cocked on some mission to prove Voldemort's continued existence. I think we need to let Tonks go back to the Ministry while you, Sirius and Ginny recover, and we'll decide tomorrow what we need to do about Voldemort."

Harry was shaking his head, too. "I don't know," he said, uncertainly. "I don't like that Tonks knows about this place."

"We can't do anything about that now, Harry," Remus reminded him. "It's very difficult to Obliviate a Fidelius memory — that's part of the spell."

"Nobody's Obliviating me of _anything_," Tonks said warningly. "You can just forget about that, thank you very much!"

"I wouldn't do it anyway, Tonks," Remus said gently. "I do happen to trust you, even if you work for the Ministry."

Tonks managed to grin at that. "So do you, Remus."

"That's all well and good," Harry said, "but it doesn't negate the fact that if you leave you'll eventually come back and bring more Aurors with you."

"I can't tell them where you are, Potter," Tonks reminded him. "You remember that's what the Fidelius is all about, right?"

"Right," Harry said. He looked at Remus, then at Sirius, then continued. "But I think _you_ know, just as well as I do, that it _may_ be possible for you to bring others through the Fidelius barrier if you Apparate or Portkey into Grimmauld Place."

"What?" Sirius looked shocked. "Really? I thought there was _no way_ to beat the Fidelius!" He looked at Remus. "Is that true, Moony?"

Remus was looking at Harry, however. "An obscure loophole in the charm, Harry. I'm surprised you know about it. But you can only Portkey through—the Portkey Charm was created after the Fidelius, so Portkeys weren't taken into account when the charm was formulated. At least, that's what our best research on the subject says." He glanced back at Sirius, who was still staring at him. "But I'm sure we have nothing to worry about, really — Tonks is a woman of her —"

Tonks reached out and plucked Remus's wand from his hand, and with her other hand pushing him back toward Sirius. She used the backward momentum that push generated to kick the chair she'd been sitting in away from her as she stood, immediately turning toward Harry, who was bringing his wand to bear on her.

But too slowly. A Banishing Charm sent him and his chair flying backwards until he hit the wall behind him. At that same moment Sirius yelled "Tonks!" and leaped toward her, changing to his Animagus format in midair. But Tonks, not even turning toward him, cast over her shoulder, and Sirius yelped as one of his hind legs shot upwards, leaving him hanging in mid-air.

Harry was trying to recover from being thrown against the wall, and again tried to train his wand on her. "_Expelliarmus_!" Tonks said, almost casually, and Harry's wand shot from his hand and landed in a far corner, away from everybody.

"_Expelliarmus_!" Remus shouted, gesturing toward her as a jet of red light left his hand, but a brief flash of blue between them told Harry she'd put up a shield to block the Disarming Charm. She pointed her wand at Remus and his arms and legs suddenly went rigid, leaving him motionless.

"Sorry, Chief Warlock," she said, though the tone in her voice was more of regret than apology. "This conversation was going round in circles — I had to bring it to an end."

"What are you going to do?" Harry asked, afraid he already knew the answer.

"What I'm supposed to do," Tonks replied. "Don't worry, Potter — between Remus and I we can probably make sure you get another hearing so you can tell your tale of Voldemort to the Wizengamot. Though Remus is likely to have his own worries very soon now, and if Malfoy does have the Map, it'll likely take Veritaserum for him to admit it. But that's not my concern; I'm just here to bring you back." She turned on her heel and Disapparated.

Harry rolled slowly to his feet and retrieved his wand, then cast the counterspell on Sirius — Tonks had obviously cast Levicorpus on him. Sirius hit the floor as a dog but jumped up a moment later, human again. "Well, _that_ was a disaster," he said unnecessarily, as Harry concentrated on the ending the Body-Bind on Remus. After a few tries the spell finally broke and Remus shook his head in frustration.

"Now what do we do?" Sirius asked.

"Do?" Remus looked resigned. "We wait. They're coming to get us and there's nothing more we can do."


	28. The Return

**Chapter Twenty-Eight  
><strong>**The Return****  
><strong>

_Updated_ 4/27/2013

=ooo=

"I'm not just giving up!" Harry said flatly, and Sirius nodded agreement.

"Giving up isn't like you, Moony," Sirius added. "_Especially_ against the powers that be. We've got to get out of here now and find someplace else to hole up!" He grinned suddenly, an idea coming to mind. "Say, what if we go up to Hogwarts and sneak into the Room of Requirement? We were always pretty safe there!"

"That's not a bad idea," Harry agreed. "When Monroe and I were in Hogwarts we held off Malfoy and a group of Aurors — they didn't know our exact reason for being in there, and the Room won't let you in if you don't how the current occupants got in there. Remus, we've got to try!"

Remus did not look nearly as confident as Harry and Sirius did. "Just getting into Hogwarts won't be easy," he objected. "And the security system Harry talked about will be able to find us anywhere in the castle —"

"Except the Room of Requirement!" Harry pointed out. "Even the Marauder's Map couldn't find anyone hidden in there!"

"And there's the matter of Mrs. Thomas upstairs," Remus went on. "She needs time to rest and recuperate from the neglect she suffered in Azkaban. I don't think she should be moved."

"We can drop her off in the infirmary at Hogwarts," Sirius suggested. "If that spitfire of a nurse is still there, she won't let _anyone_ take her until she's fully recovered, not even the Minister of Magic!"

"Madam Pomfrey is still there," Harry confirmed. "And yeah, you're right about her, Sirius! Good plan!" He turned back to Remus. "You don't have to go with us, you can stay and wait for the Aurors if you want, but we're going."

Lupin looked conflicted, but he finally nodded. "Alright, let's try it your way," he said. "Meet me upstairs," and he Disapparated. A moment later Harry and Sirius joined him in the drawing room, where Remus was picking up Ginny so he could carry her. Without a word he turned and left the drawing room, moving quietly down the hallway toward the front door. Harry and Sirius followed closely, looking warily at the curtains covering the portrait of Sirius's mother.

At the front door Remus spoke softly. "Harry, you or Sirius create a Portkey to get us to the gates of Hogwarts. From there it's going to be difficult, especially if Headmaster Longbottom doesn't want us there."

"Don't worry about Neville," Harry said. "He's no fan of Draco Malfoy, either. Of course, I don't want to impose on his hospitality too much, so the less he knows about what we're doing there, the better."

Sirius held up an umbrella he'd taken from the troll leg umbrella stand further back in the hallway. "This'll do for a Portkey, won't it?" he asked. "And it'll come in handy if it's raining in Scotland!" He tapped the umbrella with the wand he carried and said, "_Portus_." The wand flashed blue. "Okay, it'll go in 30 seconds," he said. "Everyone grab hold."

"Outside," Lupin ordered. "Too much residual magic will be held in the walls and floor if we do it here, in closed quarters." Harry opened the front door and Lupin, still carrying Ginny, hurried outside.

"Harry!" Sirius said, getting his attention, then tossed him the umbrella. "Be there in a second."

"Hurry up!" Harry said, then followed Remus outside. What could Sirius be doing?

Lupin had moved away from number 12 and into the grassy square that the other houses surrounded. "Where'd Sirius go?" he asked anxiously as Harry caught up to him.

"He's doing something, I don't know —" A woman's shrill screams suddenly came from the doorway of number 12.

"Scum! Filth! Traitors of our blood! Begone from my home, all of you!" The screams diminished as Sirius exited the front door, closing it behind him, and cut off entirely as he pointed his wand at the door. He jogged out to where Harry and Remus were standing, with Ginny still held in Remus's arms.

"Thought I'd give anyone going in there something to listen to," he grinned as Harry held out the umbrella.

"Very droll," Remus commented dryly, taking Ginny's hand and holding it against the umbrella along with his own. "Hurry up!" he commanded, and Sirius reached out and put a finger on the handle just as the umbrella flashed blue and they all vanished in a whirlwind of color and sound.

Moments later Harry was looking up at the large iron gates of Hogwarts, flanked by columns with winged pigs along their tops. He shivered; it was a cold day, with an icy breeze making the temperature even more uncomfortable. There was a thin layer of snow on the grounds. Harry could see a single track of footprints in the snow, rather large ones, in fact, leading up to the gate then away again. They were likely Hagrid's footprints, when he'd come and unlocked the gates for the day.

It wasn't that long ago that he'd come here with Monroe to seek out information in the Chamber of Secrets, then ended up playing cat-and-mouse with Malfoy and his Aurors. He, Monroe and Ginny had managed to escape, but it wasn't long after that Ginny revealed herself to be possessed by Voldemort, who killed Monroe and framed Harry with his death. Along the way he'd killed three Aurors; their deaths were blamed on Ginny, too, because it appeared to be _her_ who'd killed them.

At that moment Remus was transferring Ginny's unconscious form to Sirius. "Now hold still," he said, taking another wand from his robes and tapping Ginny on the head. She began to fade from view as the Disillusionment Charm took effect, and Remus followed suit with Sirius, Harry, and then himself. "Now let's get out of this cold," his voice said, and the gates slowly swung open.

"Sirius, you lead the way," Remus's voice said. "Harry, find his shoulder and put your hand on it. I'll bring up the rear, to cover our tracks." Harry found Sirius's shoulder, and the invisible Marauder began walking towards the front steps of the castle. Harry felt Remus's hand on his shoulder, then looked down and back at their footsteps in the snow. A few paces behind them the footprints were disappearing as Remus "repaired" them.

"I'm glad you came with us," Harry said quietly to Remus as they walked. "I think we have a real chance of exposing Malfoy as Voldemort."

"We're not going to do it from Hogwarts unless we get Malfoy to come here with the Marauder's Map," Lupin whispered back. "Which, come to think of it, if he figures out we're here he may actually _do_. He wouldn't need Longbottom's cooperation that way. You and Sirius may be onto something here, Harry!"

They continued up the path towards the front doors of the school, Sirius leading the way with Ginny in his arms and Remus covering their tracks from the rear. Sirius stopped at the front steps, looking up at them. Snow had been cleared off the front steps and an area beyond them, so they were no longer standing in snow. "Now what?" Sirius whispered over his shoulder. "Ready to head inside?"

"There'll be students in the hallways," Remus warned. "Fortunately, unless the class times have changed we have several minutes before the next class ends." They ascended the steps and paused in front of the double oaken doors.

As Sirius reached toward the door handle, however, Remus hissed "Stop!" just loud enough for him to hear. "Don't open it!"

"What's wrong?" Sirius whispered. "We can sneak past a bunch of students, Moony!"

"Not students — Aurors!" Remus whispered urgently. "There are several in the entrance hall, probably Disillusioned like us!"

"How do you know?" Harry whispered.

"I have detection charms to let me know when any Auror gets within 50 feet of me," Remus whispered in reply. "Malfoy has them watching me all the time."

"So what do we do _now_?" Sirius wanted to know. "This bird is starting to get heavy."

"We need to find an alternate entrance," Remus said. "I wonder if there are Aurors posted at the eastern entrance…"

They made their way back down the steps and walked around the north side of the castle to the east side where the greenhouses were located. Remus had Sirius enter one of the greenhouses, which were several degrees warmer than the outside temperature, and told them to wait there while he checked out the east exit himself.

Ending their Disillusionment spells, Harry found an old wheelbarrow in a corner and Transfigured it into a cot for Ginny; Sirius laid her down on it, then looked her over carefully. "She seems okay," he muttered. "I'm sure glad that potion Remus gave us didn't put _me_ to sleep!"

"It made me drowsy," Harry said. "But I couldn't sleep until I'd talked to Remus about getting us hidden and letting him know about Voldemort. Too bad Tonks had to screw up our Fidelius on your house."

"Ehh," Sirius shrugged. "I'm just glad she didn't go the way most of the Blacks went — to the Dark side, or at best becoming a blood-purity bigot. Mind, she might have cut her cousin Sirius a little bit more slack than she did."

"She might've wanted to cut Remus some slack," Harry commented.

"Heh heh," Sirius chuckled. "You notice that, too? She called him 'Remus' at one point. She sounded like she fancied him a bit."

"Well, he _is_ the Chief Warlock," Harry noted. "He'd be quite a catch."

"What about _your_ wife, Harry?" Sirius asked. "You haven't said much about her."

Harry shook his head. "Not much to say. She was Minister of Magic from 2004 on, until Malfoy (Voldemort, really) framed me for James Monroe's murder, which forced her to resign and leave public life."

"You two met at Hogwarts?" Sirius asked.

"Before, actually," Harry replied. "We met on the Hogwarts Express. Professor McGonagall told me to look for a girl named Hermione Granger on the train to Hogwarts."

Sirius looked bemused. "Funny," he muttered. "I wouldn't have taken McGonagall for a matchmaker."

Harry laughed. "Neither would I, given the interesting time I had with her on our trip to Diagon Alley."

"Your wife, or McGonagall?"

Harry laughed again, but before he could reply they heard Remus's voice outside the greenhouse. "Coming in," he said softly, and the door opened and closed. Remus appeared a moment later. "It's no good," he said at once. "They've got Aurors stationed at the east entrance as well."

"Were they expecting us?" Harry asked.

"It's hard to tell," Remus answered. "I don't think they _expected_ us to come here — they're just covering the school as a contingency. Still, it's going to make it difficult to get inside. It will also be difficult to drop Mrs. Thomas off in the infirmary and make it to the Room of Requirement afterward."

"Moony, there were _all sorts_ of ways in and out of the castle when we were in school," Sirius objected. "Surely you can remember _some_ of them!"

Remus looked thoughtful for several moments. "Well, there's that one-eyed witch statue near the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, it leads to the cellar of Honeydukes," he finally said. "And that mirror on the fourth floor has a passage that leads to the shed behind the Hog's Head Inn."

"We need one a bit closer," Sirius argued. "I don't want to walk all the way to Hogsmeade then _back_ to the castle, especially carrying someone! It's getting a bit tiring."

"I can carry Ginny," Harry spoke up.

"No you can't," Remus disagreed. "You're even weaker than Sirius is right now." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I know of one passage that's fairly close, but we hardly ever used it because of where it came out — in Hagrid's cabin."

"Oh, yeah," Sirius nodded, grinning. "That's how the big guy could make it to Dumbledore's office in a minute or so from the grounds — he had his own private passageway!"

"Best of all," Remus went on, "in the castle the entrance to the passage is behind a large picture that's about halfway between Dumbledore's office and the Room of Requirement."

"So all we have to do is sneak into Hagrid's cabin, find the secret entrance, and make our way into Hogwarts and then to the Room of Requirement," Harry finished, with an ironic smile.

"Basically," Remus agreed, smiling as well.

"Then let's get going," Sirius, who was better at making ironic comments than inferring them, said. "After I have another minute or two to rest my arms, that is."

=ooo=

Tonks reappeared near the employee entrance to the Ministry, a shabby pub that had been closed and its windows boarded over for a few decades now. The building next to it was an accountancy shop; the gap between the two buildings looked too narrow for even a child to slip into, but when a witch or wizard approached it expanded by a couple of feet, allowing access down a corridor to the back of the pub, where a password-protected door guarded the room where most Ministry employees went to travel to the Ministry proper.

Tonks tapped the door with her wand, murmuring the password for the day, "International cooperation." The password changed every day for each employee — it was given out as each person left the Ministry. If you were sick or had a holiday you had to owl the Auror Department for your next day's password. The door opened and Tonks quickly slipped inside.

Inside was a long, narrow room lined with a half-dozen fireplaces, allowing employees to Floo to the Atrium. She grabbed a pinch of Floo powder, threw it into the fireplace, which flared up with emerald green flames, and said clearly, "Ministry of Magic Atrium!"

Moments later she bolted from the Atrium fireplace, heading toward the elevators. It was probably too late to catch Black and Potter at Grimmauld Place (unless Remus persuaded them to stay, which she doubted), but that was just as well — getting any reasonable number of Aurors into Black's house through the Fidelius Charm Lupin had cast was going to be a _big_ problem.

Tonks was bouncing on her toes waiting for the elevator to make its interminable way to level one, where the Minister's office was located. She shot out of the elevator the moment the doors opened, heading straight for the Minister's office. The only problem she might have now was —

"Can I help you, Auror Tonks?"

"Yes, Goyle, you can let me past so I can talk to your boss," Tonks sighed, knowing she would have to endure what Goyle thought passed for flirting.

"He's been waiting for you to return," Goyle said casually. "It looks like you even beat Lupin back to the Ministry."

"Lupin's not coming back to the Ministry," Tonks snapped, curtly. "That's what I've got to talk to the Minister about. Are you going to let me in or what?"

"Sure, Tonksie, sure," Goyle grinned, then tapped a box sitting on the desk with his wand. "Auror Tonks to see you, sir," he said, in a now very businesslike tone.

"Send her in," Malfoy's voice replied a moment later, and Goyle gestured toward the door with a smile (more of a leer, really). Tonks ignored him and walked into the Minister's office.

The Minister's office was a lot different than it had been only a month ago, Tonks remembered, though she had been in this office more times in the past month than in all her previous 22 years of being an Auror. Malfoy tended to keep close tabs on Ministry personnel, including the Chief Warlock.

Malfoy was reading something on his desk, a stack of parchments that he did not look up from as she came to an "at-ease" stance in front of his desk. No matter how urgent the news, one did not rush Minister Malfoy when he was working. The longer she stood there, however, the more Tonks wondered just how upset he was going to be when he found out the news she had for him.

"I don't believe Lupin has returned yet," Malfoy said suddenly, without looking up at her. "You showing up before him leads me to think you have some interesting news for me. Do you?"

"Yes, very interesting," Tonks said, feeling suddenly breathless. This was going to be difficult to explain — with Lupin's Fidelius Charm in effect, she could not say or otherwise communicate in any way the location of Black and Potter. "I followed Lupin to a place where he met with Harry Potter and Sirius Black."

Malfoy looked up at her sharply. "Where?"

"I can't say, sir."

"You can't say?" Malfoy echoed. "Can you explain, at least?"

"A Fidelius is in effect, one that I was accidentally included in," Tonks answered.

"So you're a Secret Keeper?" Malfoy surmised.

"Yes, sir. I tried to take Black and Potter prisoner, but Lupin somehow figured out that I was inside his Fidelius when he cast it, he and the others were able to take me prisoner." Her hair went red at her final statement, mirroring her embarrassment.

"But you were obviously able to escape," Malfoy added. "Otherwise you would not be here. Unless…"

"My identity code for today is Hippogriff-Nogtail-Billywig-Unicorn," Tonks immediately rattled off, anticipating Malfoy's next question. Aurors had to memorize a new identity code each day so they could prove they weren't being impersonated by a Metamorphmage (pretty rare) or Polyjuiced witch or wizard (much more likely).

"And what was your identity code for yesterday?" Malfoy continued. It was unlikely someone impersonating an Auror would think to get both today and yesterday's identity codes.

"Hag-Banshee-Nundu-Ukrainian Ironbelly," Tonks recited. Malfoy nodded, convinced Tonks was who she said she was.

"Do you think they're still where you left them?" Malfoy asked. He wasn't surprised when she shook her head; they would all have to be idiots to remain there after their Fidelius was breached, and Lupin, at least ,was no idiot.

"Any idea where they might have gone?" he continued, but Tonks' response was again negative. That was disappointing.

"Not many places they could go, though," Tonks offered. "To the Weasleys, maybe. I understand they own a house in Grimmauld Square. But if Lupin is helping them they could be out of the country by now."

"Perhaps," Malfoy mused, "but Potter won't be content to simply run away from his problems — he'll want to confront them head-on. He's always been that way."

Malfoy stood, his demeanor becoming crisp and businesslike. "Crabbe! Goyle!" he shouted. A few moments later both men were standing at attention on either side of Tonks. "Put all off-duty Auror and Hit Wizard teams on standby," Malfoy told them. "I already have teams stationed in certain key locations — if we hear of anything from them we're going to converge on that location like the wrath of Merlin. Meanwhile, I have a short list of people and places we need to watch for any unusual activity: Fred and George Weasley, Molly and Arthur Weasley, Gringotts, Bill Weasley and Ollivanders, and Ron Weasley. And Dean Thomas, too." The Weasley name had come up quite a few times in that short list, Tonks noted.

"Yes, Minister," Crabbe said, and he and Goyle both strode from the room, leaving Tonks alone with Malfoy, who sat down at his desk and began rearranging stacks of parchment. After a few moments he seemed to remember Tonks was there and glanced up at her.

"You can go, Auror Tonks," he said dismissively. She had been considering asking him about what Potter had said about Voldemort, but decided against it. At best it would piss him off, and at worst…

Well, Potter _couldn't_ be right about that, could he? But if Lupin believed him, what should she think about it?

"Should I be on any of those surveillance teams, Minister?"

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her. "Did you hear me _tell_ you you were on any of those teams, Auror?"

"Er — no, sir," Tonks admitted. That had been a _bad_ question, she berated herself.

"Do you want me to let you know if Lupin returns, sir?" she went on, wondering what Malfoy would do if Lupin actually showed up at the Ministry now.

"If I'm here, that's fine," Malfoy answered in a distracted tone. "But if we get even a whiff of Potter or Black I'll be out until further notice." Without looking up he pointed at the door. Tonks got the hint and left posthaste.

Back at her desk Tonks watched as the whirlwind of activity Malfoy's orders had generated slowly died down, as Auror Teams left for their assignments. Her hair was doing a cycle of black and gold (Hufflepuff's colors) as she realized she would be one of the few Aurors left at the Ministry along with the desk jockies and those too new to have proven themselves in the field just yet. Malfoy had, in effect, shunted her to one side.

Well, there was one name that wasn't on that list, and Tonks suspected she hadn't heard what had been going on with Harry Potter. She would have to pay a quick visit and fill her in. Tonks stood, casually made her way to the lifts and down to the Atrium, then disappeared through an outgoing Floo.

=ooo=

Mr. Rubeus Hagrid puffed contentedly on a pipe as he cut up tubers into a large iron pot sitting on the scrubbed table in the middle of his cabin. Hagrid's black beared had hints of salt and pepper in it, but he showed no sign of slowing down in his duties as groundskeeper for Hogwarts.

Just outside his window, two pairs of Disillusioned eyes stared at him through the dusty glass. "How do you suggest we work this?" Harry whispered. "Just rush in and Stun him?"

"He's a half-giant," Remus reminded him. "A Stunner won't stop him. A half-dozen probably wouldn't, either. Whatever we do, it's going to have to be pretty powerful magic."

"Well, hurry up and think of something," Sirius whispered irritably. "This girl isn't getting any lighter — I'd like to drop her on Hagrid's bed and be done with her!"

Lupin put up a hand signaling for silence, then turned and looked at Sirius thoughtfully. "You know, Sirius, that's not a bad idea. Hagrid's always responded well when someone becomes sick or injured around him. Perhaps we can use that to our advantage."

"What are you suggesting?" Harry wanted to know. "That we walk into Hagrid's cabin and ask him to take care of Ginny?"

"That _I _walk in," Lupin clarified. "He'll remember me as a past professor as well as the current Chief Warlock, and it's unlikely he's heard details about the breakout at Azkaban. Also, he's not much of a Malfoy supporter, from what I've heard. I think I can get him to take Mrs. Thomas to the infirmary. Once there, Madam Pomfrey is unlikely to let anyone remove her until she's well, and the headmaster will back her up."

Harry and Sirius nodded agreement, and a few moments later Hagrid looked up at the sudden knock at his door. A furious, high-pitched yipping also sounded throughout the cabin, and Hagrid muttered, "Al righ', Claw, keep yer shirt on, we'll see who it is." He stood and in just three steps was at the door, opening it to finding Remus Lupn holding the unconscious form of a red-headed woman.

"Perfesser Lupin!" Hagrid exclaimed. "I ain't seen you in a boarhound's age! What're yeh doing back at Hogwarts?"

"Hello, Hagrid," Lupin greeted him, his voice slightly strained. Sirius had been right — Ginny Thomas was heavier than she looked. "As you can see, I have a bit of a problem here — this woman is unconscious and I believe she's in need of medical help."

"Well, come in, come in, don' stand out there in the cold jawin'," Hagrid insisted, and watch as Lupin stepped inside, looking around the cabin. "Put 'er on my bed," Hagrid said, as the yipping started up again, and Lupin stepped over to the massive bed, laying Ginny's body on the quilt covering it. "Quiet, Claw!" Hagrid snapped, and the yipping cut off. "Sorry," he muttered. "Claw barks at ennyone he don't know." Lupin glanced around, finally seeing a very small dog, a Jack Russell terrier, staring up at him suspiciously.

"A bit of a change from your last dog," Lupin told Hagrid, smiling.

"Yeh," Hagrid nodded. "Well, after Fang… passed —" he said this with a catch in his throat. "I figgered I'd see how well a smaller dog would do here wit' me." Hagrid was scratching his chin as he stared at the woman on his bed. "Looks like one of the Weasleys, don't she? What happened to her?"

"I'm not sure," Lupin hedged.

"Why dincha bring her up to the infirmary, then?" Hagrid wanted to know.

"I found her not far from your cabin," Lupin answered. "I wanted to see if there was something I could do before taking her up to Madam Pomfrey."

Hagrid cocked his head at Lupin. "So? Whadja figger out, Perfesser?"

"Oh," Lupin said, and took out his wand. He passed it over Ginny's unconscious form several times, then looked up at Hagrid. "She doesn't have any injuries, external or internal. I think she just passed out. I suppose we can take her to the infirmary and let Madam Pomfrey do a more detailed examination."

"I s'pose," Hagrid agreed, but there was a hesitation in his voice. "You know, Perfesser, this kinda looks like Ginny Weaseley — er, Thomas, I mean. I thought she was in Azkaban these days." He was giving Lupin a calculating look. "So whut's _really_ goin' on here, Perfesser?"

"You're right, Hagrid," Lupin replied, "this _is_ Ginny Thomas. I found her at my home over lunch, along with a note from Harry Potter asking me to take care of her, that she had been near death in Azkaban when he and Sirius Black escaped and she needed medical care. I gave her a potion to help her recover but she needs more time, and I'm afraid if I drop her off at St. Mungo's the Ministry will simply throw her back in prison, where she will die shortly thereafter. I think there were details of the crimes she was accused of that were not properly presented; I want an opportunity to reexamine them. Meanwhile, I believe she will be safer here at Hogwarts than anywhere else. I'd like _you_ to bring her to Madam Pomfrey while I work on her case."

"Hmm," Hagrid scratched his chin. "What happened to Black an' Harry Potter, then?" he asked.

"They had gone by the time I arrived home," Lupin said. "I don't know where they might have gone. They could be anywhere by now."

"Yeh, I s'pose," Hagrid agreed. "Well, I don' see the harm in takin' her to Madam Pomfrey. Only —" and the half-giant looked around the room conspiratorially before continuing, "I gotta short cut inter the castle, Perfesser, and I'd 'preciate it if yeh didn't tell ennyone about it, if yeh catch my drift."

"Of course not, Hagrid," Lupin agreed immediately.

Hagrid nodded solemnly, then pulled the chairs around his scrubbed wooden table out from beneath it and slid the table over against a wall, exposing the floor beneath it. Hagrid went to over to his chest of drawers and fished around in the top drawer for a few moments, finally coming up with an iron ring that he slipped onto his index finger. With a grin toward Lupin, he went back where the table had been, leanind over and touching a knot in the floor with the ring. He pulled upward, and a large trap door suddenly appeared, swinging upward to reveal a staircase leading downward.

"Kinda handy when I need a quick word wit' the Headmaster," Hagrid commented, going over to the bed and picking up Ginny. He walked back to the opening, then looked at Lupin. "Are yeh goin' with us, Perfesser? Yeh might need ter explain to Madam Pomfrey."

"You'll be fine, Hagrid," Lupin assured him. "I need to get back to the Ministry and help continue the search for Black and Potter. Hagrid nodded and began walking down the steps. It seemed improbable that he would be able to fit down the passageway but within moments he was out of sight.

"Interesting," Remus commented to himself, then went over and opened the front door. The sound of footsteps were heard, then a pair of cracking sounds as Harry and Sirius appeared, their Disillusionment Charms dissipating.

There was another round of furious yipping as Claw objected to their presence, but Sirius looked at the terrier and growled, "Go lie down, pup," and the small dog retreated to his basket, watching them balefully.

"That was easy enough," Harry murmured, looking down the trap door into the passageway. "So now we just follow Hagrid and head for the Room of Requirement at the other end, right?"

"We'll give him a minute to get further along," Remus suggested. "He might get suspicious if he heard someone following him." A minute later they walked slowy down the steps into the passageway leading to the seventh floor of the castle.

The passageway was larger than expected; it could easily accommodate someone Hagrid's size, and there were glowing balls of light every dozen yards or so that lighted their way. Lupin paused at one to examine it more carefully. "Looks like a permanent Light Charm cast onto a glass ball," he told Harry and Sirius. Simple, but effective. I wonder how long these have been here — Hagrid couldn't have created them."

"If this was so he could get in the castle quickly," Sirius suggested, "one of the headmasters may have done it for him."

"True," Remus agreed. "Probably Dumbledore. I don't think Headmaster Dippet would have — he believed Hagrid summoned the Monster of Slytherin and that it killed Abigail Myrtle."

"I thought we were being quiet so Hagrid wouldn't hear us," Harry interjected softly.

"I cast a Silencing Charm, just in case," Remus said, smiling. "I know Sirius just can't keep his mouth shut."

"Yeah, right, Moony," Sirius muttered. "Thanks for your support."

They came to steps leading upward and followed them for a long way until they arrived at a blank wall. Remus cast a spell detecting for living beings on the other side; finding none, he slowly pushed on the wall. It swung away, revealing a seventh-floor corridor. He motioned for Sirius and Harry to follow him through.

"Dis must be dey place," Sirius quipped as he looked around the corridor. "Now how do we find the Room of Requirement from here?"

"It won't be hard," Remus said. He pointed in one direction along the corridor. "Follow me."

=ooo=

Tonks appeared in the foyer of the TBC building. The foyer was nearly empty except for a woman and a small child walking out of an elevator toward the front exit. The young boy was staring at Tonks as if he'd just seen a woman appear out of thin air (which perhaps he had). "Mummy!" he cried, trying to point at Tonks as his mother hurried toward the exit. "That lady with the pink hair! She —"

"It's not polite to point, Sidney," his mother said crossly to him.

"But Mummy! She was just _there_, like mag—" the rest of his statement was cut off as his mother pulled him out the door.

Tonks looked around the lobby. According to reports filed a few months ago, there was a separate elevator that led to the Potter apartment. After Potter's arrest, the door had been enchanted so that only wizards could see it, to keep anyone from stumbling upon it. As Tonks concentrated, a section of the wall suddenly expanded a few feet, causing a door to appear. Tonks walked over to the door, cast _Alohomora_ on it, and walked through.

Beyond the door was a hallway, and a few yards down another door, which Tonks magically unlocked as well, stepping through to find a small room with nothing but an elevator door inside. She pushed the button next to the doors and they opened immediately. She stepped inside and hit the button marked "PH."

The elevator began moving, irritatingly slow to anyone used to Apparation or Portkeys. When the doors finally opened again, she stepped into another small room, this one containing a fireplace and another door. The fireplace had been disconnected from the Floo Network, Tonks knew. In fact the whole Potter apartment had been "de-magicked" almost to the point of Muggle-tude: no Extension Charms, no wards, nothing to warn former Minister Granger of anyone's approach, not even a Muggle, assuming a Muggle could get through the wards leading up to this point. The Ministry (read: Draco Malfoy) had effectively cut Hermione Granger-Potter off from the rest of the wizarding community.

Not that Tonks had a dragon in that fight; it was up to the Wizengamot and the current Minister how they treated their former Ministers of Magic. But, Tonks reasoned, if anyone had an idea what Harry Potter might do or where he might go after breaking out of Azkaban, it was his wife.

Tonks knocked on the door and waited nearly a minute before pulling her wand to check for anyone on the other side. There was nothing but a corridor leading to another door. The door wasn't even locked. She went through it, walking down the corridor to the next door, and knocked again. Again, nothing, and she cast her detection spell again. This time she sensed a normal apartment living area that seemed empty, but there was a human presence further inside. Technically, she was trespassing, but… Tonks unlocked the door and stepped inside, following where her detection spell told her the human was.

Hermione Granger-Potter was in bed, curled up and seemingly asleep. It was the middle of the afternoon, Tonks remembered; how long had the former Minister been sleeping? "Minister?" she said, softly.

"I'm not the Minister anymore." Hermione's voice was dull, listless. "Whoever you are, go away. I don't want to speak to anyone."

"It's Auror Tonks, ma'am," Tonks offered. "You remember me, don't you?"

Several seconds of silence. Then, "Yes," Hermione's voice came from beneath the covers, "but I still don't want to speak to you. So go away."

"I have news about your husband."

There was another moment of silence. "What did he do, break out of Azkaban?"

Tonks was a bit taken aback by that. "Actually, he did, ma'am. And Sirius Black escaped with him."

"What, the man who killed his parents? That seems unlikely. And how do you know that, anyway?"

"Well…" Tonks didn't really want to admit how she knew, especially to a former Minister, but — "Well, they sort of captured me and told me, before I escaped."

Hermione slowly sat up. She was thinner than Tonks remembered her, and there were lines on her face that hadn't been there a month ago. She was giving Tonks a penentrating look. _That_ Tonks remembered. "What are you doing here, again?"

"We need to find them, ma'am," Tonk said matter-of-factly. "We thought — well, _I_ thought, you might have some idea where they might have gone to hide."

"Where did you find them first?" Hermione asked, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

"I can't tell you, ma'am. It's protected by a Fidelius."

"Then how do _you_ happen to know? Why would you be included in a Fidelius to hide Harry?"

"By accident, ma'am. Chief Warlock Lupin cast the spell without knowing I was present until it was too late."

"_Remus_ was part of this as well?" That seemed to surprise Hermione most of all. Hermione's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "That doesn't seem credible, Auror. Remus Lupin has been an exemplary Chief Warlock for many years now. It seems unlikely he'd help Harry _or_ Sirius Black break out of Azkaban."

"I agree, Minister," Tonks nodded. "But it may have had something to do with Lupin's past friendship with Sirius Black. They apparently attended Hogwarts together."

"Harry told me they had," Hermione added. "But Sirius Black went into Azkaban in 1981 for the murder of Peter Pettigrew — that's… 35 years ago."

"Harry claims Pettigrew visited him in prison before he broke out."

Hermione shook her head slowly. "_Harry_ said that? I think he must've hallucinated that. He's been in Azkaban a month now. Do you really expect me to believe something like that, without proof? Do _you_ believe any of it?"

"I don't know _what_ to believe, ma'am," Tonks said, honestly. "It seemed like Potter believed what he was saying, and Lupin believed him."

"Harry can be very persuasive," Hermione said. "Believe me, I know that. But… what else did they tell you?"

"Well," Tonks hesitated, but she needed to get the former Minister engaged in this manhunt, make her want to find Potter and Black. "He said that Voldemort was still alive, and that he was possessing Draco Malfoy."

Hermione stared at her for several moments. "And do you believe _that_?"

"Well, not really," Tonks conceded. "There's a spell that might prove the Minister is possessed, but I don't think anyone but the Chief Warlock has authorization to use it on him, and Remus has already lost his objectivity in this case by helping Harry and Black. But if we can find Harry, get him to argue his case before the Wizengamot again, we might have a basis for testing Malfoy for possession."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like a thinly veiled attempt to get me to predict where Harry might go to hide out." She gestured tiredly toward the apartment. "Obviously, he's not here — I assume you've checked."

"Yes, ma'am," Tonks conceded.

"And he probably would go to any of his friends like the Weasleys," Hermione went on, like she was trying to work out this puzzle for herself.

"Well," Tonks volunteered. "They did break Ginny Thomas out as well. Harry insists she, too, is innocent of the deaths of the three Aurors she's convicted of murdering."

"Ginny, too, huh?" Hermione ran her hands through her disheveled hair, clearing it out of her eyes. "_That's_ interesting. Well, I'm sure Malfoy has them under surveillance in case Harry or Ginny shows up, but Harry would expect that."

"I don't know, ma'am," Tonks shook her head doubtfully. "Harry didn't seem too sharp during the time I observed him. It looked more like he was letting Remus take the lead on what they should do."

"Did you check back at the location where you found them?" Hermione asked.

"Not yet," Tonks admitted. "But it seems certain they would have left once they knew their protection was blown."

"Then you can't be certain theyaren't still there," Hermione pointed out, reasonably. Tonks realized she was correct.

"I ought to go back and check," she said, "just in case." She turned to leave.

"Wait," Hermione said. She tossed off the covers and threw her legs over the side of the bed. She was still dressed in the clothes she had worn last night. "I'm going with you."

"I can't allow that, ma'am —" Tonks began to object.

"You shouldn't even be in my apartment without Minister Malfoy's permission," Hermione cut her off, standing. She picked up her wand from the bedside table and passed it over herself, straightening and cleaning her clothes. "_Do_ you have permission to be here, Auror Tonks?"

Tonks didn't answer. "Didn't think so," Hermione went on.

"I can't get you through the Fidelius," Tonks bluffed. "I'm not the primary Secret Keeper."

"A Portkey can," Hermione replied, calling her bluff. "It's a loophole in the spell — Portkeys weren't invented when the Fidelius was first created. Sorry, Tonks, I'm going with you whether you like it or not, if you want my help finding Harry Potter-Evans-Verres."

Tonks nodded. She _did_ want to find Harry Potter-Whatever-Whatever.

=ooo=

Harry, Sirius and Remus moved down the seventh-floor corridor in the direction Remus had pointed out. Sirius was looking around, smiling happily. "Almost feels like a classs reunion," he said to Remus. "With Harry here taking James's place."

"They aren't the same person," Remus reminded him. "Harry is a lot different than James was, though I'd estimate he's about as smart as James was."

"I don't know about that," Harry said over his shoulder. "I had some weird shit go down with me and James Monroe before I ended up in Azkaban. My Patronus has helped me remember a lot of stuff, but I've got a ways to go before I get back to the way I was."

"Don't worry about that, Harry," Sirius said confidently. "We'll help you get back to normal. There's a lot the Room of Requirement can do for you, I'd wager."

"We'll see," Remus said in a more non-commital tone. "The Room of Requirement will be just around this corner."

They rounded the corner, looking for the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, knowing the Room of Requirement's entrance was just opposite it. What they did not expect to find, however, was the Headmaster of Hogwarts standing in the middle of the corridor waiting for them.

He did not look happy to see them.

"Well," Neville Longbottom said, in a rather irritated tone. "The prodigal wizards have returned to the scene of the crime." His wand was out and held at the ready, in a position that could either initiate offensive spells or react with defensive ones.

"Who's this kid?" Sirius asked in a condescending tone. "He hardly looks old to have graduated from Hogwarts, much less teach here."

"He's the Headmaster," Harry said, _sotto voce_. "Let us do the talking, Sirius."

"I know who _you_ are," Neville responded. "Sirius Black, convicted of thirteen murders, including the wizard Peter Pettigrew, in 1981 and sentenced to life in Azkaban. The question at the moment is, what are you doing here with the Chief Warlock?" Neville's gaze shifted fractionally to Lupin. "Remus?"

"We need asylum," Remus answered at once. "We have new information in Harry and Sirius's cases that could exonerate them, and we may also be able to prove that Lord Voldemort —" Neville frowed at the name but did not flinch "— is not dead but is possessing the body of another wizard."

"Who?" Neville asked. "Wait," he went on. "Don't tell me, I'm keen to guess. Let's see, could it be — Minister Malfoy?"

"Actually," Remus nodded. "That's exactly who we believe he's possessoing —"

"Malfoy's on his way here," Neville cut over him. "I just informed him that you three are here, and Ginny Thomas as well."

"Neville!" Harry cried out disbelievingly. "You haven't even heard out side!"

"I'm not the Wizengamot," Neville informed him. "I'm not taking sides, I'm making my school safe for my students!"

"How'd you figure out we were here?" Lupin asked, as his eyes quickly scanned the corridor around them and Neville. They would have to do something quickly before Malfoy arrived and the school went into Auror Lockdown.

"My security system," Neville replied, "let me know the moment you entered the grounds. I've been tracking you for minutes now, waiting for you to make your move. Clever of you to have Hagrid take Ginny Thomas to the infirmary so you could follow him along his secret passageway into the castle. Once you left the exit I knew exactly where you were heading, and I made sure I got here before you."

"One of the perks of being the Headmaster," Harry muttered. Neville controlled the Anti-Apparition spells within the school and grounds; he could turn them on or off whenever he wanted. Very likely he was keyed into the wards themselves, so they didn't prevent _him_ from Appariating.

"True," Neville agreed. "So let's just settle in wait for Malfoy and his Aurors to show up — this time for you, not to make trouble in the school like the last time you were here, Harry."

Remus held up both hands placatingly. "Alright, alright Neville. We're not going to make any trouble, we'll just wait —" Remus's hand suddenly twitched in a quick gesture. Neville's wand went flying out of his hand.

At the same moment Sirius and Harry's wands were both out. Neville's hands were moving as well and both Stunners they sent at him were deflected away, though Neville staggered back at the impacts on his wandless shield.

Remus, meanwhile, was reaching up to snatch Neville's wand from the air and it spun toward him, but it suddenly stopped and reversed direction, flying back into Neville's wand hand. "Impressive," Harry muttered to himself, wishing he'd studied more wandless magic, and tried to Banish the wand, but Neville had already caught it. Remus's wand was moving in another spell gesture but before he could complete the spell Neville Disapparated.

_Well, I was right about the wards_, Harry thought.

"We need to leave," Remus said urgently. "If they can track us anywhere we go in the castle —"

"But not in the Room of Requirement!" Harry argued. "We can use it to figure something out before Malfoy gets here!"

"Not enough time!" Remus disagreed.

"Where else can we go, Moony?" Sirius asked matter-of-factly. He pointed down the corridor in Remus's direction. "Check for Disillusioned wizards — I'll do the same in the other direction. Harry, you get the door open!"

Harry hurriedly began pacing back in front of the blank wall opposite Barnabas the Barmy's tapestry. "We need a place to hide ourselves," he muttered beneath his breath as he quick-stepped back and forth. "We need a place no one can find us, a place we can figure out what to do next!"

Just as a heavy oaken door appeared in the wall as Harry completed his third pass, a Stunner richocheted off the tapestry as Sirius blocked it. "It's open!" Harry shouted, grabbing the door and jerking it open. He, Sirius and Remus disappeared through it just as two more Stunners hit the door from opposite directions and whined away.

Harry's breath was coming in short gasps as he pulled the door closed and let go of it. He turned back to Sirius and Remus, smiling triumphantly. Sirius shared his grin but Remus looked less than happy.

"Well, we're inside," he said to Harry. "And now they know right where we are. I hope you're ready for some siege warfare."

"Beats the alternative," Sirius pointed out. "I'd rather be hiding in here than caught and back in Azkaban out there. Now, d'you think we can get some food up in here? I'm beginning to feel a bit peckish."

Lupin shook his head. "Sirius, it's a long time since we were students here and could coax the house-elves to bring us food from the kitchens. I'm afraid we're going to have to make do with wand water and some protein bars I have in my robes until we come up with a solution to our problems."

"Then we need to remember just what this room could do when we asked, Moony," Sirius insisted.

"Remember," Harry muttered. "That's a good idea, Sirius." He held up his wand and began the motions for a certain spell. "_Expecto Patronum_!"

=ooo=

The dark hallway of number 12, Grimmauld Place erupted into a sudden explosion of color and whirling air as two people suddenly appeared there, both of them falling as their feet touched the hallway floor.

Hermione shook her head and decided to wait a moment before standing. _Well, that's one question solved_, she thought to herself, watching as Auror Tonks quickly jumped to her feet, embarrassed to have fallen in front of the Minister (well, _former_ Minister, who'd incidentally fallen as well). Then, "What in the world is all that _screeching_?"

Tonks covered her ears. "It's Black's mother!" she shouted at Hermione. "Her portrait, really! She screams like that whenever she's disturbed!"

Hermione was covering her ears as well. "How do we shut her up?" she yelled back.

Tonks took out her wand. "Hang on a sec," she growled, and walked off down the hallway. Hermione jumped to her feet and followed.

"Filth! Scum! Freaks!" she could hear an old woman screaming. "Begone from the house of my fathers —" the screams suddenly cut off. By the time Hermione caught up with Tonks, she was gesturing at a pair of dusty velvet curtains that drew shut over a life-size painting of a batty-looking old woman—a woman whose eyes were now covered in a blindfold.

"That's that," Tonks muttered, then turned to Hermione. "Well, Minister, welcome to number 12, Grimmauld Place — the Black Family's ancestral home. Since you arrived with me and the Portkey, I should be able to tell you this is where Harry and Sirius Black were holed up with Remus Lupin. And obviously, I just _did_ tell you," she added, smiling.

"Right," Hermione agreed. "What we need to know, however, is where they are right now."

"I hope they left some clues as to where they might have gone," Tonks explained. "Let me show you where they held me before I escaped." Hermione followed the Auror down the stairs to the kitchen.

"I disguised myself as Chief Warlock Lupin and brought them groceries, something the real Remus said he would do," Tonks told Hermione. "I had hoped to fix Harry and Black some stew laced with Sleeping Potion and bring them to the Ministry to be returned to Azkaban, but Remus returned unexpectedy and exposed my disguise. They captured me and Harry explained he thought that Minister Malfoy was really Voldemort and that he'd framed Harry and the Thomas woman for crimes he'd committed."

"Oh my god," Hermione sighed. "I can't believe Harry would try to resurrect that Dark wizard again! How was he going to prove Voldemort was still alive _this_ time?"

"He has some idea that an artifact called the Marauder's Map could prove that Malfoy and Voldemort were inhabiting the same body if he could lure Malfoy to Hogwarts with the Map," Tonks said, sounding doubtful. "Harry even wanted me to break into the Minister's office to look for the Map!"

Hermione shrugged resignedly. "Once Harry latches onto an idea he hangs on with the tenacity of a bulldog. But," she added, thoughtfully, "that could be an indication of where he is right now…"

Tonks saw it at once. "You mean Hogwarts? That would not be the smartest place for him to be. You can't Apparate or Portkey in or out or anywhere within the grounds, and the Floos are restricted. Plus, I understand there's a security system that can track anyone on the grounds the same way the Marauder's Map is supposed to do. Potter would be foolish to go there."

"Maybe," Hermione replied, "but Harry would find some way to turn all that into an advantage."

"If he can do _that_," Tonks retorted disbelievingly, "we should have made him an Auror. What the _hell_ —?"

A brillian silver light had suddenly illuminated the room. Tonks had spun around toward the source of the light, her wand instinctively coming up to protect the Minister. "_You_ again!" she gasped, recognizing the new arrival. "What are you doing here _now_?"

Hermione had recognized the form as well. But she was staring at Tonks. "Do you know what this is?" she asked.

"It's Potter's Patronus — or so he told me," Tonks answered, still holding her wand at the ready. "I don't know if it's here for you or me, though."

Hermione smiled. "No offence, Auror Tonks, but I doubt Harry knew who you were before he captured you earlier today. I think it's here to bring me a message from Harry."

"I am," the Patronus nodded. "But my message is for both of you, seeing that you are here together in Sirius's home."

Hermione blinked. "What?" she said blankly. "How could a Patronus know anyone was with me?"

"I can see it plainly enough, Hermione," the Patronus answered. "I am capable of more than simply parroting messages."

"What?" Hermione frowned. "Harry never told me his Patronus could act independently of him!"

"Until he cast me for the first time in years, earlier today," the Patronus replied, "he was unaware of it himself, or of the other things I am capable of doing. He has sent me to you in the hopes that I might be able to help you understand as well."

The Patronus reached out a silver hand toward Hermione, who froze as Tonks tried to come up with a spell to stop it should the Patronus hurt the Minister in some way. The glowing fingertips touched Hermione's forehead, and her eyes widened as memories suddenly formed in her recollections. "Oh. Oh my _god_," she whispered. "It's unbelievable, but it has to be true. Tonks, we have to go to Hogwarts immediately!"

But the Patronus shook his head. "That would not be advisable. Harry wants you to go to the Ministry immediately and call for an emergency meeting of the Wizengamot so they can be assembled when he returns to the Ministry with Malfoy."

Tonks lowered her wand. "Is that where Potter's at?" she asked Hermione. "Hogwarts?"

"He and Remus and Sirius Black as well," Hermione confirmed. "Malfoy and Aurors will be on their way their as well. We can't let Malfoy take Harry — if he does we'll never see him or Black again. And they're all innocent, Tonks! It's Malfoy who's behind all this — or really, Voldemort!"

"But —" the Patronus said, looking back and forth between the two women. They seemed to be ignoring him.

"Right," Tonks said ironically. But it would remain to be seen whether Malfoy was acting strangely or not — they would have to bring Potter and Black before the Wizengamot to get this nightmare cleared up legally and get the allegations Remus planned to make against Malfoy dropped. "Okay, then, let's go. We should do this outside," she added, then grabbed an umbrella from the troll's leg umbrella stand. "This should make a good Portkey." She and Hermione exited the front door and moments later had disappeared in a whirl of wind and color.

Harry's Patronus stared at the spot they had disappeared from. "That did not work out as planned," it said, then vanished itself.

=ooo=

Minister Malfoy and a squad of Aurors burst into the entrance hall, Malfoy barking orders before the doors were out of his way.

"All Disillusioned Aurors drop their charms, be prepared to converge on Potter's location once it's ascertained. Where's the Headmaster?"

Neville appeared in the middle of the entrance hall. Seeing Malfoy, he strode toward him. "Potter, Black and Lupin are on the seventh floor near the Room of Requirement. They are probably inside by now." He looked upward. "Security, where is Harry Potter right now?"

"Harry Potter cannot be located," the cool female voice replied. "His last location was on the seventh floor near the —"

"Nevermind," Neville snapped. "I know where he was." To Malfoy he said, "Well, I reported to you the moment I knew he was here, but if he's inside the Room of Requirement I don't know what we can do short of waiting until he and the others run out of food and water. And if they brought either with them it could be a long time before that happens."

The front doors flew open again, and Hermione and Tonks ran into the entrance hall. Malfoy opened his mouth but Hermione cut him off. "Don't give me that look, Draco!"

"Call me Minister," Draco said, curtly. "And how do you know Potter's here?"

"He sent me a message that couldn't be faked, so don't try to lie to me about that, _Minister_!"

"Oh, I won't lie to you," he said, calmly. "In fact, I'm glad you're here. I think it will simplify my negotiations with our three fugitives quite a bit."

"What's that supposed to mean, Minister?" Tonks asked, not liking the tone Malfoy had adopted. Things were starting to feel strange.

"It means Mrs. Granger-Potter is going to help me talk Potter out of the Room of Requirement," Malfoy said, evenly. "And from there we'll see that he gets his day in court." He smiled at Herminoe. "I'm sure that's what you want, isn't it, Hermione?"

Hermione decided she _definitely_ didn't like Malfoy calling her by her first name. "Call me Granger," she said shortly. "And let's go get Harry."

=ooo=

"Look, I'm not asking for a damn _banquet_," Sirius was complaining to the house-elf who had appeared after Sirius spent several minutes telling the Room that he wanted something to eat. "Just something simple — say, like roast beef and potatoes — maybe some corn or peas, and some butterbeer would be nice, too."

"Noddy is very sorry, sir," the house-elf was pulling his ears as he spoke — he was not comfortable with the orders he'd been given, but orders they were. "Headmaster has said you are not to be brought any food from Hogwarts kitchens."

Sirius folded his arms, frowning down at the house-elf, who was practically groveling under him. "That's not being very house-elf-like," he said, shaking his head with disappointment. "Aren't you supposed to do what's asked of you?"

"Noddy wants to, sir!" the house-elf looked frantic now. "But orders is orders!"

"And what if I _order_ you to bring me some food?" Sirius growled.

"Then Noddy will have to punish himself _most_ severely for disobeying," the house-elf said, miserably.

"Sirius," Lupin looked over at Black from where he and Harry were discussing their situation. "Don't torment the poor fellow. You know he has to obey Longbottom's orders above all else."

"Fine," Sirius snarled, frustrated. He waved a hand dismissively at the elf. "Go on, then, get back to your kitchen." Noddy gratefully disappeared with a _crack_ and Sirius joined his fellow fugitives. "So what's the plan now?"

"Same as it was before," Harry answered plaintively. "Wait until Malfoy shows up then force a meeting of the Wizengamot so we can prove he's possessed."

"Yeah, that's all going to work out fine," Sirius said pessimistically. "They'll probably charge me with the rat's murder as well."

"Remus thinks he can force the issue with Malfoy," Harry explained. "The Chief Warlock still controls the Wizengamot, not the Minister of Magic. If Malfoy refuses to be tested for possession he's going to lose a lot of support in the Wizengamot."

"Or so you hope," Sirius shrugged.

"It's pretty cut and dried," Remus added, confidently. "Malfoy is already on shaky ground — he hasn't assigned a new Head Auror to take his place now that he's Minister. Some in the Wizengamot see that as a power grab."

"And what do his _supporters_ say?" Harry wanted to know.

Remus smiled wanly. "That his first choice would have been Hermione Granger-Potter, but since she retired from the Ministry he's had a hard time finding someone qualified for the job. That much, at least, is politics-as-usual. But after a month that excuse is getting a bit thin."

Sirius turned to Harry. "So where'd your shiny doppleganger get off to?"

"I sent it to tell Hermione to go to the Ministry and call the Wizengamot in for an emergency meeting," Harry replied. "I think it's coming back now — I can feel it, sort of…" a moment later the Room was illuminated in silver light as the Patronus appeared next to Harry.

"She did not listen," the Patronus said, gravely. "She comes here, instead."

"Ah, dammit!" Harry swore. "What does she think she's going to do _here_?"

"POTTER." An amplified voice boomed through the walls of the Room. "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

"Well, Draco's here," Remus said, with false cheer.

"Right," Harry agreed, sourly. He turned to his Patronus. "Go see what he wants us to do."

"Yes," the Patronus turned and walked through the wall. Harry watched it disappear, then tilted his head thoughtfully.

"Interesting," he murmured. "I wondered who was out there, and I can see them through the Patronus! They've brought quite an array of Aurors to take us in." His expression fell. "Hermione's out there, too. I don't think I like that."

"What are they saying to you — to your Patronus?" Remus asked anxiously.

"Malfoy is demanding that we all leave the Room of Requirement and surrender our wands immediately." He listened a moment. "Hermione is demanding that we all be taken to the Most Ancient Hall of the Wizengamot to hear new information in our cases. Malfoy doesn't like that — he wants us back in Azkaban before he'll convene a hearing."

"Of course he does," Sirius muttered. "If we go back to Azkaban we'll never get that hearing, will we?"

"Most likely not," Harry agreed. "Hermione is saying essentially the same thing, a bit more diplomatically, though. Crabbe is trying to shut her up — holy crap, that Tonks woman just pulled her wand on him! That was pretty gutsy of her."

"Maybe we should get out there," Remus suggested quickly. "Perhaps our presence will defuse that situation."

"Out of the frying pan and into the fire," Sirius snorted. "But what the hell — what've we got to lose now?"

Harry wasn't sure he wanted that answered, but he had to do something to protect Hermione. If she pushed Draco too far now there was no telling what he would do, possessed by Voldemort or not! "Let's go," he said, and the three men walked out into the corridor beyond.

The corridor was nearly full of people. Besides Malfoy and Hermione there were Crabbe and Goyle, and behind them stood Tonks, wand still out but no longer pointed at Crabbe. On the other side of the corridor were three Aurors Harry didn't recognize; one was an older man whose left hand had been replaced with a hook. The other two were younger Aurors, one male and one female. All of them looked angry.

"Alright, we're here," Harry said to Malfoy. "What's next?"

"Surrender your wands," Malfoy said again. "You and Black are guilty of escaping from Azkaban. In addition, you've destroyed valuable Ministry assets."

"We made a few holes in your precious walls," Harry began, dismissively, but Draco cut him off.

"No. I mean the Dementors you destroyed. Only a few survived your onslaught."

Harry stared in frank surprise and no small amount of — well, horror. "You've got to be kidding, Malfoy! Those things are — blights on the world! The sooner we're rid of all of them the better!"

"So you admit it," one of the nameless Aurors spoke up. "You destroyed nearly one hundred Dementors when you broke out of Azkaban!"

"And I'd do it again!" Harry declared forcefully. "How many people have they destroyed over the years? Not just at Azkaban, but over the centuries across Britain and Europe? It's like you're defending bubonic plague!"

"Nevertheless," Malfoy said, with no emotion in his voice. "You will be held accountable for them." His voice turned crisp as he continued. "I've also been told you wish to level charges at _me_?"

"That would be me, Minister," Remus said, taking a step toward Draco. Crabbe and Goyle's wands were instantly on him, and Remus stopped, keeping his wand pointed toward the floor. "I think we should determine whether Harry's allegations that you've been possessed have any merit, and that such determination should be done before the full Wizengamot. Immediately."

Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you'd like to find a way to discredit me, Chief Warlock — that's been on your agenda since I became Minister, obviously."

"Wait a minute," Tonks spoke up. "I've never seen any evidence he's been trying to do that!"

"Shut it, you," Crabbe growled at her. "Nobody's talking to you." Malfoy put up a hand and Crabbe said no more as Tonks glowered at him.

"I have no problem submitting to such a check," Malfoy said to Lupin. "But it will be at the Wizengamot's convenience, not yours, Chief Warlock. In the meantime, Potter and Black will be returned to Azkaban, and I will be bringing charges of my own for your part in aiding with their escape."

"He didn't have anything to do with that!" Tonks piped up again. "He was contacted after the fact, not before it!"

"I have evidence that suggests otherwise," Malfoy retorted. "And you have het to file your reports on the Chief Warlock's whereabouts when he was out of the Ministry, Auror Tonks." Tonks jaw dropped.

Sirius, standing right behind Harry, leaned close to his ear and whispered, "I don't like where this is going. Malfoy seems hell-bent on sending us back to Azkaban without a hearing. And these Aurors all seem to want that, too."

"How can you tell that?" Harry whispered.

"When the only people you talk to for decades are pissed-off, burned out Aurors, Harry, you get good at reading their moods."

"That's completely unacceptable, Draco," Hermione was saying as Sirius finished his whispered comment. "If there are new facts in the case, the Wizengamot has an obligation to hear them before returning the prisoners to prison! We've had that protocol in effect for over a decade now!"

"Since you became Minister," Malfoy finished dryly. "I remember. You pushed them through when it became obvious you couldn't get the Dementors removed from Azkaban — the Wizengamot wants prisoners kept on a shorter leash than you like.

"But in this case the 'facts' you refer to are nothing more than a wild attempt by the prisoners to avoid their just punishments as well as the extra punishment they will receive for their breakout attempt —"

"Breakout _success_, you mean," Sirius said with a grin. "We kicked some major ass back there." The three Aurors reacted to that, muttering darkly about whose ass would get kicked next.

"Enough of this!" Malfoy said loudly. "Potter! Black! Drop your wands or you will be disarmed and immediately removed back to Azkaban!"

"No!" Hermione shouted. "Harry, don't give up your wand! This needs to go to the Wizengamot before anything —" Her voice cut off suddenly as Goyle grabbed her and pulled her back.

"Goyle!? You— _Stupefy_!" Tonks put a Stunner into Goyle's back and he crumpled to the floor, pulling Hermione on top of him. At the same moment Crabbe pushed Malfoy behind him and pointed his wand at Tonks. On the other side of the corridor the three Aurors brought up their wands, pointing at Tonks, and fired Stunners at her. Tonks, who'd been concentrating on Crabbe, was knocked off her feet and hit the floor, unconscious.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Lupin was shouting, both hands raised high and waving to get everyone's attention—

— but Malfoy was shouting at the same moment "Don't let them get away!" and pointing at Harry and Sirius, who'd both backed up against the corridor wall, wands up but not aimed toward anyone. Hermione was struggling to stand again, trying to move toward Harry, but Crabbe and Malfoy were blocking her way.

"Disarm them!" Crabbe shouted at the three Aurors, who immediately trained their wands on Harry, Sirius and Remus. Harry's wand flew from his hand, as did Sirius's, but Remus held onto his.

"_Stupefy_!" Crabbe shouted, and a red bolt burst from his wand toward Remus, who easily blocked it. The three Aurors all cast Stunners at Lupin, but he blocked all three without difficulty.

No one moved for several seconds.

Harry scanned the corridor, looking for his wand, but one of the Aurors must've caught it. He didn't see Sirius's wand either. Malfoy muttered something to Crabbe; he pointed his wand at Goyle, who jerked awake. Must've used _Rennervate_ on him, Harry assumed. Crabbe pulled Goyle to his feet and whispered something to him. Goyle nodded, then grabbed Hermione and began pulling her away down the corridor.

"Hey!" Harry shouted. "Bring her back!" But Goyle kept dragging her away.

"She's going to Azkaban," Malfoy yelled at him. "Unless you surrender immediately, Potter! You and Black both!"

Harry hesitated only a bare second. "I surrender, then!" he shouted. "Bring her back!" But Goyle and Hermione had already rounded a corner and were out of sight. "Goyle! You bastard! Bring her BACK!" He took a step toward Malfoy.

Crabbe's wand was instantly on Harry as was the wands of the three Aurors behind him. Harry took another step but Remus took him by the arm.

"Harry," Remus whispered urgently. "Don't force anything with Malfoy! He's trying to goad you!"

Harry ignored him. "Malfoy, get Hermione back here," he demanded.

Malfoy only smiled triumphantly. "Your surrender is the only thing that'll keep her from Azkaban."

"You don't really want us to surrender, do you?" Harry suddenly realized. "We're already disarmed but your men haven't moved in to take us. You have something else in mind, don't you?"

A mask of nonemotion had settled on Malfoy's face. He turned slightly toward Crabbe and said in a low voice, "Permission granted."

"Thank you," Crabbe said, and pointed his wand at Harry. "_Avada Kedavra_!"

As Crabbe finished the spell, Lupin shouted, "NO!" and leaped forward, moving between Harry and Crabbe. Time seemed to slow down as a bolt a green energy erupted from Crabbe's wand and flew toward the Chief Warlock.

Then time seemed to stop.

Harry blinked. Time _had_ stopped. What the _hell_?

The Killing Curse was hovering in the air only inches from Remus Lupin's chest. He looked at Crabbe and Malfoy — both were unmoving, not even breathing. In the other direction the three Aurors' wands were pointed at him, Remus and Sirius, but they had frozen as well. Even Remus was still; he hadn't reacted to the green death that was about to strike him.

Harry glanced at Sirius, who was staring fixedly at Remus as well. Then Sirius turned to look at Harry. "That didn't work out well, did it?" he asked, matter-of-factly.

"Huh?" Harry said.

Sirius nodded toward the others. "I thought we'd get this fracas under control. Or at least, enough to get Hermione free of these Aurors and get her and Tonks out of here. I should've guessed Malfoy would want us dead if Voldemort is in his head now."

"Huh?" said Harry again.

"Oh, yeah — sorry," Sirius said, then concentrated for a second. A pale image separated from him and stepped away, solidifying into —

James Monroe. Sirius had stopped moving and was as frozen as the others now.

"Huh?" Harry said, a third time.

"Hi, Harry," Monroe said, grinning. "I'm baaack."


	29. Finding Hermione

**Chapter Twenty-Nine  
><strong>**Finding Hermione****  
><strong>

_Updated_ 5/11/2013

=ooo=

It took Harry a moment to decide he wasn't hallucinating and hadn't been knocked out and was dreaming. "Back? You can't be back, you should be — well, dead."

James Monroe certainly didn't _look_ dead at the moment. He didn't even have the transparent, silvery look of a ghost. It seemed like Harry could simply reach out and touch him like any normal human being. But he had _seen_ Monroe die —

"Well, I suppose," Monroe shrugged, "it must've appeared that way when 'Ginny' hit me with the Killing Curse. But appearances can be deceiving, you have to agree, since we didn't realize Voldemort was possessing Ginny until it was too late."

Harry rubbed his forehead. This situation had been bad enough, with Hermione being hauled off to Azkaban and he, Remus and Sirius surrounded by Malfoy and his Aurors, all intent on taking them back to prison. Or worse, since Crabbe had cast a Killing Curse of his own at Harry. Now, it had just gone round the twist.

"Okay," Harry said at last. "Right. Nothing is as it appears. Got it. Now, are you going to explain what you're doing _here_, now? _Especially_ how you just popped out of Sirius, like you were possessing him?"  
>"Is that what it looked like?" Monroe asked, giving the frozen Sirius a bemused look. "It looked like I was possessing him?"<p>

"I have no idea," Harry admitted. "Voldemort possessed several people over three decades, but he didn't have a body of his own when he did that. It appears you have a body _now_, but I saw it killed when Ginny — I mean,Voldemort — murdered you. Based on what I've seen so far, I have to draw the conclusion that you created a Horcrux of your own."

Monroe made a _well-maybe_ gesture with one hand. "I might've drawn that same conclusion if I was in your shoes, Harry, but that's not the case." He looked around the room at the others standing there, all unmoving. "Before we get into the details of why I'm here, I think you ought to resolve this situation with Malfoy and make sure everyone's safe. Agreed?"

"Alright," Harry agreed. "Although I don't understand what's going on _now_. Why is everyone frozen except us? Even that —" Harry's voice caught for a second as he realized that Remus was only a fraction of a second from death "— that Killing Curse is stopped in mid-air, which should be impossible."

"Which it obviously isn't," Monroe pointed out, "since you see it hovering there. Any ideas on how we can keep it from hitting Lupin?"

Harry shook his head, but then began putting out ideas anyway. "Move him out of the way of the curse, or stop the curse, somehow." He shook his head, remembering what Mad-Eye Moody had told him: _There's two reasons why that spell's in the blackest book. The first is that the Killing Curse strikes directly at the soul, and it'll just keep going until it hits one. Straight through shields. Straight through _walls_.__ There's a _reason_ why even Aurors fighting Death Eaters weren't allowed to use it before the Monroe Act. The second reason is that the Killing Curse doesn't __just__ take a powerful bit of magic. You've got to _mean_ it. You've got to __want__ someone dead, and not for the greater good, either._

"But the Curse will just keep on going," Monroe said, as if echoing Harry's thoughts. "That just leaves blocking it."

"And it _can't_ be blocked," Harry muttered, bleakly.

"You're not remembering," Monroe was shaking his head. "There is one thing that can block that curse. Do you recall it now?"

"I —" Not all of Harry's memories had come back to him. He'd remembered some, his Patronus had helped him recall some of them —

His Patronus!

"I remember now," Harry nodded excitedly. "I was in Azkaban — the first time, years ago — and Quirrell cast a Killing Curse at an Auror who had confronted us. He said afterwards he knew the Auror would dodge, but I didn't know that at the time. I cast my Patronus between the Killing Curse and the Auror, and they both vanished in a burst of light." Harry looked at Lupin and the bolt of green death only inches from his chest. "But do I have time to cast it now?"

"You have all the time in the world," Monroe replied, enigmatically. "But your Patronus will have to avoid touching Lupin, if it can, or he might absorb the Patronus and a lot of your knowledge. There are things it knows that you probably don't want _him_ to know."

Harry cocked his head, wondering how his Patronus could fit between Remus and the Killing Curse, with only inches beween them. "Ah!" he said, finally realizing what he could do. "But…what happens _after_ I block the curse? We're still up against four Aurors, plus Malfoy, and Sirius and I have been disarmed."

"I can fix that," Monroe said. The wand Harry had been using floated out of the hand of one of the Aurors and over to him. "Go ahead and cast your Patronus, Harry."

"What about Sirius's wand?"

"He'll be fine without it," Monroe said. "Get your Patronus into position and time will resume. You'll have the advantage of surprise for a few moments — be sure to use it wisely."

Harry nodded, hoping that was possible, then concentrated for a moment. "_Expecto Patronum_!" His Patronus blazed into existence, standing next to Remus and the Killing Curse. The Patronus reached out, moving its shining silver hand between the curse and Remus's chest.

"I'll be here," Monroe told him, "but no one will be able to see, hear or touch me. Once you're in control of the situation we can start to deal with making sure everyone is safe."

There were other things to do as well, Harry thought — they still had to deal with Voldemort and his Horcruxes — but he said nothing. He looked at Monroe, took a deep breath, and nodded.

Lupin shouted, "NO!" and leaped forward, moving between Harry and Crabbe. Time seemed to slow down as a bolt a green energy erupted from Crabbe's wand and flew toward the Chief Warlock. There was a flash of silver and green, and Lupin grabbed his chest where the Killing Curse should have struck him. Then his wand shot forward and both Malfoy and Crabbe were thrown back as a Banishment Charm hit them.

Harry, his wand now in hand, spun back toward the three Aurors, pointing to the oldest of the three, the one-handed Auror who was about to curse Remus. "_Expellliarmus_!" he shouted, and the wand flew from the Auror's fingers.

At the same moment Sirius leaped toward the three Aurors, transforming to his Animagus form and twisting sideways in mid-air so he slammed into all three Aurors, knocking them off their feet. Sirius grabbed a wand in his teeth and rolled over the Aurors, coming up behind them and transforming back to human. He snatched the wand out of his mouth and with three quick shouts of "_Stupefy_!" Stunned the three dazed Aurors into unconsciousness.

Crabbe, still trying to protect Malfoy, cast a Cutting Hex at Remus's legs, but the Chief Warlock blocked the spell and riposted with the Disarming Charm, sending Crabbe's wand flying down the corridor away from them. Crabbe scrambled toward the still-unconscious Tonks, trying to grab her wand, but Remus Summoned it before Crabbe could reach it.

At that same moment Malfoy brought up his own wand with a slashing gesture, shouting "_Sectumsempra_!" which Harry, who had turned back to help Remus, blocked. The deflected spell hit the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, slashing it nearly in half. Malfoy scuttled backwards, casting a Shield Charm which gave him a moment to regain his feet. Crabbe, who had rolled to his feet as well, grabbed Malfoy's arm and pulled him away from the confrontation, grabbing his wand as they passed it and disappeared around the corner.

That left the three Aurors and Tonks unconscious on the floor, with Remus, Harry and Sirius still conscious. They began to assess their situation.

"Harry," Remus said, breathing heavily, "thank you! And _how_ did you manage to cast your Patronus in time to stop that Killing Curse? I was sure it was going to hit me."

Harry shook his head, not sure how to answer. He wouldn't have _had_ time if Monroe hadn't done whatever he did to stop time, but Harry _was_ not going to tell anyone that Monroe was back right now. Especially not when he didn't understand how he could be alive again. Assuming he had died in the first place. And where _was_ he? Monroe had vanished when everything began moving again. "Just — just lucky, I suppose," he said at last.

"It was," Remus agreed, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I'm just glad you were able to do it." He shook his head. "I can't believe Malfoy gave permission for Crabbe to use that spell! I think you must be right about him, Harry — he has to be possessed if he's not completely deranged."

"I hate to sound like a broken record," Sirius said, joining the two of them. "But what do we do now?"

"We have to stop Goyle from taking Hermione to Azkaban," Harry answered immediately.

"What about this lot?" Sirius pointed toward the three unconscious Aurors. "And what do we do about Tonks — she's still out cold, too."

"Bring Tonks with you," Monroe suddenly spoke into Harry's ear. Harry jumped — it was like the man was right next to him, though no one was there. "You might need her help later."

Remus, who'd watched Harry jump but didn't seem to hear what Harry did, asked, "What's wrong, Harry? What made you —"

"Nothing," Harry said, trying to cover his surprise. "We should bring Tonks with us — she might be able to help us later on."

"Harry, she just got hit by three Stunning Charms," Remus pointed out, concerned. "We may have to take her to St. Mungo's." He glanced down the corridor Malfoy and Crabbe had retreated into, then walked over to where Tonks lay unconscious. He bent over, hesitated a moment, then put a hand on her chest. "She's breathing okay," he said a few moments later, then held one of her wrists for several seconds. "Her heart rate is slower than I like, though. We should take her to St. Mungo's before Malfoy sends Aurors there to watch for us."

"He won't," Harry disagreed. "He'll probably bring every Auror he can spare to Hogwarts to find and capture us."

"Great," Sirius growled. "So how are we going to get Tonks out of here? And how do we get out _ourselves_, for that matter?"

Harry pointed to a nearby window. "We can go that way."

Remus looked at the window, then back at Harry. "We're on the seventh floor, you know, Harry," he said, with exaggerated calm. "We don't have time to Levitate the four of us that far."

Harry rubbed the back of his head, trying to think. "Whatever we're going to do, we need to do it quickly, then," he said, speaking fast. "Anyone else got any bright ideas?"

Monroe's voice spoke in his ear again. "Use the Room of Requirement to create a passage to Hogsmeade," the voice said.

"What?" Harry said, surprised. "It can _do_ that?"

"Do what?" both Remus and Sirius said at the same time. They had not heard anyone but Harry speak.

"Yes," Monroe's voice said. "Tell it you need a secret passage to Hogsmeade, into the Hog's Head Inn." Harry shook his head, skeptical of the idea. He'd never heard of the Room being used for something like that.

But there was no time to waste. "Get Tonks," he said, urgently. "I've got an idea." _I just hope it works_, he added to himself. He walked back and forth in front of the wall where the door to the Room of Requirement usually appeared, thinking the phrase Monroe had given him.

Sirius had picked up Tonks and stood beside Remus, watching as Harry walked back and forth. "What's he up to _now_?" he asked, baffled. "Are we hiding in the Room of Requirement again?"

"I don't know," Remus muttered. "I hope not, not if he wants to keep Hermione out of Azkaban. We have to get _out_ of Hogwarts, not hole up here."

On Harry's third pass a large wooden door appeared, and he grabbed the handle and quickly opened it. "Inside," he said urgently. "I'll explain once we're inside."

Remus and Sirius looked at each other and shrugged, then followed Harry into the Room of Requirement.

The room was not very large, and braziers set along the walls provided enough light to see the most notable (and only) feature of the room: a large wooden door with brass bindings at its far end. "There's where we're going," Harry said, pointing. "That should take us to Hogsmeade."

Remus looked nonplussed, but Sirius guffawed. "Never thought of that!" he roared. "Hey, Moony, how come you never figured out we could get out of the castle through this room?"

"It never occurred to me," Remus said, looking chagrinned. "Harry, how did you know about this?"

Harry shrugged; he couldn't tell them the real reason. "Just a lucky guess," he said again, evading the question. "Come on, I want to be in Hogsmeade before anyone shows up to find —"

"POTTER! WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!" an amplified voice resonated through the walls. Harry didn't recognize the voice, but it was distorted because of the Sonorus Charm and by the walls. "COME OUT IMMEDIATELY OR WE'LL COME IN AFTER YOU!"

Sirius was looking back at the door they had just come through. "Wankers," he snorted disdainfully. "That's a pure bluff."

"We're not waiting around to find out," Harry said. He pulled open the door leading out of the Room of Requirement. A set of wide steps led downward, with brass lamps on the walls lighting the way. The four of them (with Sirius still carrying Tonks) began walking down the steps. The door closed behind them of its own accord.

"Potter!" The voice behind the wall, now greatly diminished in volume, spoke again. "Did you hear me? Get out here or we're coming in after you! We're not joking, we're really going to do it! Potter! Potter?" The voice finally faded to silence.

The stairs continued downward, taking a few corners and leveling out for a bit before returning to a downward path. Harry and the others continued walking along the passageway in silence for some time before anyone spoke again.

"That was a very impressive display of magic back there, Harry," Remus commented.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed. "I was sure we were all goners when you jumped in front of Harry with that Killing Curse coming at him."

Remus gave Sirius a bemused look. "Well, there's only one thing that stops a Killing Curse — two, really: a living soul and now Harry's Patronus." Remus turned back to Harry. "I'd still like to know how you managed to cast the Patronus Charm so quickly. You couldn't have had more than a fraction of a second before that spell would have hit me."

Harry hesitated; he almost stopped walking, but they had to get out of Hogwarts' anti-Apparition wards so they could get to the Ministry, where Goyle would be getting Portkey authorized for her transport to Azkaban. You couldn't just dump someone in the wizards' prison without the proper authorization these days, no matter who your boss was.

He gave Remus a sort-of pleading look, like he was trying to find the right words. "Well, this is going to sound a bit mental, but I had some help."

"Well, _sure_," Sirius agreed, shifting Tonks in his arms as they continued down the passageway. "I mean, Remus and I did help you take out those three Aurors, as well as Crabbe and Malfoy."

"No, I mean —" Harry was groping for the right words to explain this. He looked up, hoping Monroe would notice. "Help me out here," he said, pleadingly.

"How can we help you, Harry?" Remus asked, concerned.

"I was — it's hard to explain." Harry paused, trying to think. "I mean someone else was in that corridor when Crabbe cast that spell at me."

"Who?" Sirius asked. "What do you mean, were they Disillusioned or under an invisibility cloak, something like that?"

"No, he was —" Harry hesitated again, then shrugged and plunged ahead. "He was actually inside you, somehow. Like you were possessed. When that curse was headed toward Remus it just suddenly stopped, along with everyone around me. Like time had stopped, somehow."

Remus and Sirius were looking at one another. "There's no such thing as a spell to stop time, Harry," Remus said, slowly. "You should know that."

"I do know that!" Harry insisted. "But it happened! Everyone was frozen, then all of a sudden Sirius looked at me and said, 'Well, that didn't go too well, did it?' and I was like, 'What?' and then James Monroe suddenly appears, he walks out of Sirius's body like a ghost, and turns solid, and then he reminded me that my Patronus could stop a Killing Curse, so I cast one and had it move between Remus and the curse and time started up again and — well, you know what happened from there."

Remus nodded. "Yes, we know what happened. But go back a second. You said James Monroe appeared. James Monroe is the man you're accused of murdering, correct?"

"Yes, but —"

"Yes, I know you said Voldemort really did it," Remus interjected, cutting off Harry's objection. "But that doesn't change the fact that the man is _dead_."

"He must've escaped the Killing Curse somehow, Remus!"

"Did you try to stop Voldemort from killing him?"

"No, he immobilized me first —"

"Did _Monroe_ cast a Patronus like yours to block the curse?"

"He didn't even know about a True Patronus — I've never discussed it with him!"

"Then," Remus concluded, "it seems like you must have hallucinated what you think happened in the corridor before you cast the Patronus that saved me. Perhaps you anticipated what Malfoy and Crabbe were talking about and were preparing — wait, I thought you lost your wand, but you had it after your Patronus blocked that curse. Did you have a spare?"

Harry shook his head. "This is the only one I had, I took it from Pettigrew."

"Hmmm," Remus looked puzzled. "Sirius, did you see how Harry got his wand back?"

"No idea," Sirius said. "I didn't have a wand, either. And I wouldn't have the first clue how to do what Harry can, even if I did."

"I don't think I hallucinated seeing James Monroe!" Harry broke in.

"Did you drink the restorative I gave you at Grimmauld Place?" Remus asked.

"Er — yes," Harry replied, wondering about the change of subject.

"You felt rather sleepy afterwards?" Remus continued.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "But I needed to talk to you about Voldemort, I couldn't sleep then!"

"One of the side effects of that potion is that trying to stay awake too long after drinking it can induce hallucinations. Harry, I believe that you _think_ you saw Monroe and talked to him, but you may be misremembering what happened when Crabbe cast that curse at me. I think you anticipated the spell and cast your Patronus while Crabbe was speaking, but you don't believe you could have cast it that quickly. Your mind invented an explanation for that apparent paradox. It would be wonderful if Monroe still lived, but I don't think that's true."

"I don't know," Harry said uncertainly. He remained silent for several seconds, half-hoping that Monroe would appear and prove him correct, or at least speak to him again…although, Harry suddenly realized, that would be exactly what would happen if he _were_ hallucinating. "Maybe it — it was a hallucination, or something like that. I guess we got away, though, and that's what matters."

They had come to a set of steps leading upward, and began climbing them. The steps curved back and forth as they rose steadily upward, and Sirius was breathing heavily as they neared a blank wall. "You going to make it?" Remus asked Sirius as they stared up at the featureless wall in front of them.

"Thanks for waiting 'til now to ask, Moony," Sirius huffed, shifting Tonks in his arms to make sure he had her. "Less talking, more walking — it looks like we're about there."

Remus waved his wand several times at the wall. "Only one person on the other side," he said, his voice low. "And if this is the Hog's Head Inn, I know who it is." He pushed on the wall in front of them.

It swung away, revealing the interior of a small room that looked to be a sitting room, with two upholstered chairs and a small table between. In one of the chairs, the lone occupant of the room, an elderly man with graying hair and a short beard, stared up at the foursome in frank surprise.

"Hello, old friend," Remus said, jumping from the passageway onto the floor. "Sorry to call on you without owling ahead first…"

The old man frowned in apparent anger and stood. "What do you think you're doing, Lupin? Who're —" he stared as Harry jumped to the floor. Harry looked back, seeing that the passageway ended over the mantelpiece of a small fireplace. The "door" that had opened had a picture frame around it, but he couldn't see what the picture looked like.

"Just a second," Remus said, as the old man stared up at Sirius, who was still standing in the opening with Tonks in his arms. Remus pointed his wand at Sirius and said, "You can jump down, I've got you." Sirius nodded and stepped off the mantle, floating slowly downward with Tonks still in his arms.

"Thanks," Sirius said as his feet touched the floor. He stared at the old man for a moment, then grinned and quipped, "How about a round of butterbeers, barkeep?" He jerked his head toward Tonks, in his arms. "I'll take care of hers if she doesn't want it."

"Don't be a smart-mouth, boy," the old man growled. "I know who you are — and you, too," he added, pointing to Harry. "Both of you are supposed to be in Azkaban right now." He looked at Remus. "What's the Chief Warlock doin' farting around with these two hooligans? And what's with the Auror? She your hostage or something?"

"Minister Malfoy just tried to have Harry and Sirius killed," Remus replied matter-of-factly. "I narrowly avoided taking a Killing Curse in the chest."

"That Malfoy is a bad seed," the old man grumbled. "Always has been. Mind you, that doesn't make these two less guilty."

"We're not guilty!" Harry spoke up. "Malfoy —" he stopped, staring at the old man. "Wait a minute. Aren't you supposed to be dead?" First Monroe, now Dumbledore's brother.

Remus seemed to read his mind. "That's not Dumbledore's brother, Harry. That's Alderforth Dumbledore, his cousin. He took over the Hog's Head after Aberforth — died."

"But —" Harry started to object.

"Don't get into it, Harry," Sirius cut him off. He moved toward an empty chair and sat Tonks down in it. "Whew, glad to be rid of that!" He turned back to Harry. "Old Alderforth's got his own worries — don't you, Aldie?"

"Shut it, boy," Alderforth snapped, "or I'll turn you in to Malfoy myself!"

Sirius laughed, then leaned close to Harry and said, _sotto voce_, "He _hates_ being called 'Aldie'."

"Just what're you lot doing _here_?" Alderforth demanded, folding his arms across his chest. "How'd this — this —" he pointed at the opening above his fireplace "— whatever this is, get there?"

"I asked the Room of Requirement for a passageway to the Hog's Head Inn," Harry said. "It was —" He was going to say James Monroe suggested it to him, but decided against it. "— something that came to me after Malfoy and his men ran away after trying to kill us. We needed to get out of Hogwarts. Damn!" he exclaimed, just remembering. "We left Ginny in the infirmary!"

"Poppy and Neville will keep her safe," Remus reassured him again. "Your wife is a more pressing concern now." He turned to Alderforth. "They were using Harry's wife to get him to surrender, and when Harry refused Malfoy's terms he ordered her brought to Azkaban until Harry gave in. He tried to, but she's still on her way there, and Malfoy tried to kill him to boot. We have to intercept them at the Ministry and stop that."

Alderforth was shaking his gray-haired head doubtfully. "You have no chance, Remus — don't be an idiot."

"That's a hell of a thing for Albus Dumbledore's cousin to say," Sirius said hotly, ignoring Remus's gestures to be quiet.

"Besides," Sirius went on. "We've got our way into the Ministry right here — Tonksie will get us in."

"You're going to trust one of Malfoy's stooges?" Alderforth asked incredulously. "Good luck with _that_!"

"Tonks is not like that," Remus defended her. "It's true she tried to give Harry and Sirius a potion that would knock them out so she could take them into custody, but she did not know all of the details of their cases. She was Stunned trying to defend Hermione. I think she will side with us when she awakens."

"Why don't we find out?" Sirius suggested, and pointed his wand at Tonks' unconscious form. "_Rennervate_," he said, and Tonks jerked, then jumped up from the chair into a fighting stance.

She glanced around the room, then relaxed, looking slightly sheepish. "What happened?" she asked, predictably. "We were in the corridor outside the Room of Requirement —"

"We beat them," Remus answered. "Malfoy and Crabbe retreated after having Goyle drag Hermione away, to take her to Azkaban. The other Aurors were taken out by Harry and Sirius after you were Stunned. Then Harry had the idea to use the Room of Requirement to create a passageway leading out of Hogwarts, and we're in the Hog's Head Inn, run by Albus Dumbledore's cousin Alderforth."

Tonks nodded, then rubbed her forehead. "Ouch. I've still got a headache from those Stunners. So what's the plan? Where are we now? Are we going after Hermione?"

"Yes," Harry said immediately. "I don't want her anywhere _near_ Azkaban."

Tonks thought for a second. "They'll be expecting you at the Ministry, you know. They'll need time to gather enough members of the Wizengamot to approve her being held there until the trial —"

"Assuming there is a trial," Sirius said, grimly.

"Oh, there'll be one," Tonks assured him. "Even _you_ got a trial, cousin, though they cut a few corners on procedure."

"More like a kangaroo court," Sirius muttered. "They assumed I was guilty before I ever set foot in front of the Wizengamot."

"Well, you _were_ standing ankle-deep in the blood of twelve dead Muggles, laughing, when the Aurors took you," Tonks reminded him.

"Let's move on, shall we?" Harry said, tightly. "How are we going to get into the Ministry and get Hermione out if they're expecting us to do that?"

"I would think," Remus interjected, "that most Aurors would expect anyone escaping from Azkaban would run as far and as fast as they could, not break into the Ministry."

"An' that's what _you_ should be doing, Potter," Alderforth added forcefully. "Keep your head down, lay low and don't make waves."

"I'm not going to let them send my wife to Azkaban!" Harry said loudly. "She's done nothing wrong!"

"Then they can't send her to the wizards' prison, can they?" Alderforth argued. "The Wizengamot'll have to let her go."

"No," Remus declared. "Malfoy will find a way to trump up some charges and make them stick. He has major support in the Wizengamot — his father has seen to that — and he seems to have a hard-on for Harry. Sorry, Auror Tonks," he added, looking embarrassed at his use of a vulgarity in front of her.

"No, you're right, Chief Warlock," Tonks agreed. "When Malfoy was Head Auror he told us to expect Harry Potter to do the opposite of what anyone else would do if we needed to go after him. When he became Minister, he made that same point even more often. It was like he almost _expected_ Harry to break out of Azkaban." Tonks snorted. "I wonder if that was Malfoy talking, or Voldemort?"

"So you believe me when I tell you that Voldemort has possessed Malfoy?" Harry asked.

Tonks cocked her head. "I don't know," she admitted. "But he's acted different since he became Minister, like he's become even more paranoid than he was before. I don't know, that could be the way most Ministers start to act once they're in office a while, but Malfoy started in straightaway."

"All the more reason why we need to get Hermione out of the Ministry and to safety," Harry said. "I just wish I knew where Malfoy was right now — at the Ministry or still at Hogwarts."

=ooo=

At that moment Draco Malfoy was in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, having taken it over and turned it into a command center; he was waiting for the latest reports from the seventh floor by his Auror teams. Nearby, Headmaster Neville Longbottom, the only Hogwarts staff member still allowed in the room, was watching Malfoy unhappily.

Neville had allowed Malfoy and the Aurors into Hogwarts so Harry Potter and Sirius Black, both of whom had just escaped from Azkaban prison, could be quickly captured, ensuring the safety of his students. However, in the time Malfoy or his men had been here (Aurors had arrived with the news that Potter and Black were no longer in their cells at the prison, and an Auror presence was being established in case they came to Hogwarts), no one had been taken into custody (though they had tried to take Ginny Thomas — Madam Pomfrey had declared she was too ill to be moved right away and Neville had backed her; Malfoy had let the situation stand for now) and Potter, Black and (surprisingly) Chief Warlock Lupin had evaded capture by retreating into the Room of Requirement once again.

In response, Malfoy had ordered all the students into the Great Hall, where he confiscated all the magical cell phones, magic-resistant laptops and smart devices held by the students, then sent them all back to their common rooms with orders to remain there until further notice. Any student caught in the corridors without authorization from Malfoy would undergo a disciplinary hearing by the Wizengamot. He then ordered Neville to give him the current security system information on Harry Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Neville had complied, reluctantly, only to be told that the three could not be located — meaning that they were probably in the Room of Requirement.

The security system had confirmed that the last known location for Potter, Black and Lupin was on the seventh floor just outside the Room of Requirement. And then, even worse than having his students confined and Malfoy ordering him about like a house-elf, Neville learned that Potter's wife, former Minister of Magic Hermione Granger-Potter, had been taken into custody, as various portraits had let him know when he wasn't within Malfoy's hearing. Neville had always supported Herminoe's Ministership and was disappointed when she resigned after Harry's conviction and sentence to life in Azkaban. Neville would have urged her to stay and work to make conditions more tolerable in the wizards' prison.

Neville saw Crabbe move closer to Malfoy, speakinig in low tones. He whispered "Go," then reached up to slip a small, flesh-colored bit of string into his ear. From the bottom of his robes another bit of string shot out, slithering along the floor until it came to rest beneath the Slytherin table where Malfoy was sitting.

"— still no response from Potter or Black from inside the Room," Crabbe was saying. "The teams want to know whether they're still inside the castle."

Draco shook his head. "That's not their concern — they are to keep watch outside the Room, Disillusioned or Cloaked, and take them down the moment they exit. Besides," Malfoy added, "I have _independent_ confirmation they are nowhere else in the castle." He patted his chest, as if there were something under his robes. "Tell them to remind Potter that every minute he wastes hiding inside the Room, his wife will spend that much longer in Azkaban."

"Okay, Boss," Crabbe said, "but you know they can't ship her off until you've at least appeared before a minimum of half the Wizengamot to request she be bound over until a full court can hear her trial — that's the law."

"I know very well what the law is, Auror Crabbe," Malfoy said, coldly. "Granger and I agreed to it, remember? But here — look at this." Malfoy took a piece of parchment from an inside pocket of his robes and handed it to Crabbe, who unfolded it and read. A moment later he chuckled and handed it back.

"Pretty clever, Boss," he said. "How'd you get Lupin to sign a warrant ordering she be bound over for trial on the charge of obstruction of justice?"

"Lupin signs a lot of things every day," Malfoy said, grinning. "It took a while to get the original writing off that parchment, but it can be done for the right price. And this is just a copy — Goyle has the original required for confirmation by the Aurors at Azkaban. Granger is already at Azkaban by now — and I told the Aurors there to make sure she's put as close to the remaining Dementors as possible."

Neville pulled back the Extendable Ear, horrified by what he'd heard. Hermione already in Azkaban? Illegally and _without_ a meeting of the Wizengamot?! He'd obviously backed the wrong horse in this confrontation between Harry and Malfoy — Malfoy had no regard for the safety of his students, his Aurors were running wild in his school. He'd have to warn Harry what Malfoy had done.

But even the _Headmaster of Hogwarts_ couldn't get into an occupied Room of Requirement unless he knew exactly what the occupants had asked the Room for. Not without — well, but Fawkes had disappeared long ago, when Dumbledore died. At least he had a way to contact someone about this, though he didn't know what they could do about it.

Leaving the Great Hall, Neville went into the small antechamber near the High Table, where Malfoy and his Aurors couldn't hear him. Reaching into a special pocket in his robes, Neville drew out a Galleon. This Galleon wasn't real, but it could do things real Galleons couldn't. Turning it to its reverse side, with the image of Ragnok, Neville tapped the coin with his wand and said softly, "Fred Weasley."

The image of Ragnok blinked; a few seconds later it blinked again. Neville knew that Fred's Galleon was signaling him that someone wanted to. Neville hoped he was someplace where he could answer. After a few more blinks the image of Ragnok transformed into a golden image of Fred Weasley, who beamed up at him.

"Nev! How're things at Hogwarts?" Fred asked brightly. "Ready for another upgrade of our security system — we've worked out a way to —"

"This isn't about that, Fred," Neville cut him off, wanting to deliver the bad news before Malfoy came looking for him. "I just learned that Hermione Granger-Potter has been sent to Azkaban."

"_What_? What for?" the golden image of Fred asked in shocked surprise.

"Near as I can tell, Malfoy is sending her there to force Harry Potter to try and go there to save her," Neville replied.

"But, Harry's in Azkaban already," Fred said, frowning in confusion. "How's he going to save her if he's there himself?"

"He broke out earlier today," Neville told him. "Haven't you heard?"

"No!" Fred was now quite agitated. "There's not a bloody thing about it on the Wizarding news feeds! Are you sure he broke out?"

"He was _here_, Fred," Neville said. "With Remus Lupin _and_ Sirius Black!"

"You're joking!"

"I'm not! They claim they're both innocent — that Black _didn't_ kill Peter Pettigrew or those Muggles all those years ago and Harry didn't kill that Monroe fellow. Oh, and there's something you should know," Neville added. "They had Hagrid bring your sister to the Hogwarts infirmary."

"Ginny's out of Azkaban? Thank Merlin!" Fred breathed. "But if Malfoy's there —"

"Poppy and I kept him from sending her back to Azkaban, at least until she's well enough to be moved," Neville assured him. "I don't know how long he'll go along with that, though."

"Long enough for us to get her out of there," Fred said, grimly. "Did — did Harry say anything about her?"

"He said she didn't kill those three Aurors, that — well, as unbelievable as it sounds, that it was Voldemort possessing her that killed them."

Fred's image registered surprise again, but quickly recovered. "Well, if Harry said that, it's good enough for me. I'd wager Voldie is responsible for killing the bloke they locked Harry up for killing, too.

"Nev, we're coming for Ginny, but I'm going to talk to my contact there first to set things up. We'll be in touch." Fred's image reverted back to Ragnok.

_My contact there_. Neville pondered what Fred had meant by that. If he had someone on the inside at Hogwarts it was no wonder so many students had Weasley phones and gadgets, though they had no way to get to Diagon Alley other than during Christmas and spring break. He might have to find out who that "contact" was so he could keep the burgeoning magic-proofed electronics market at the school at a manageable level. But getting Ginny to safety, guilty or not, _that_ was a good thing. From what Poppy had told him, she wouldn't have lived much longer if she'd remained at Azkaban. So Ginny going back to that prison — no, that wasn't an option anymore.

=ooo=

"Trying to get into the Ministry, even _with_ an Auror's help, is lunacy," Alderforth growled. "Don't be an idiot, Potter — you can't win against them."

"I got out of Azkaban, didn't I?" Harry pointed out, stubbornly. "I can get into the Ministry. And it's not up to you — it's not your wife being sent to Azkaban — wrongly, I might add!"

"Right or wrong, it ain't gonna save you against a horde of Aurors out for your blood," Alderforth snapped. "And make no mistake, Potter, they want your blood. You broke out of their prison, so it's gonna be personal for them now."

"It's personal for me, too," Harry shot back. "They have no reason to put Hermione in prison except to bait me into coming to get her! Well, that's what they're going to get — as soon as I figure out how…"

"Aaaaah," Alderforth jeered. "Bloody stupid if you ask me."

"Nobody asked you," Tonks snapped. "You must've been a lot different when you were in the first Order of the Phoenix."

"Never was," Alderforth declared. "Left that for my foolhardy cousins, Albus and Aberforth. Aberforth ended up dead, killed by You-Know-Who, and Albus was never the same afterwards." Harry stepped back, remembering the images he had seen in Dumbledore's Pensieve those many years ago, and he realized that it was as if Hermione were being held for ransom, as Aberforth had been, by Voldemort.

He could not play Voldemort's game. He knew that. But equally, he could not let Hermione go to Azkaban. If he had not destroyed every last Dementor, if even one remained, there would soon be two, then four, then a dozen or more, and finally they would be back in full force, a hundred or more.

And he would have to kill them all again.

Harry looked at Tonks, then Remus. "Any ideas what we can do?" he asked them, almost pleadingly. "We're just wasting time here."

Tonks was shaking her head slowly. Remus appeared to go deep in thought. Sirius wasn't saying anything, either; just watching his cousin and fellow Marauder trying to come up with an idea to invade the Ministry that had at least a chance of working.

"We have to do something they won't expect," Remus muttered. "And with Aurors that leaves a pretty small range of ideas, none of them obvious. If Auror Tonks or I appeared there now we would immediately be under suspicion and taken into custody. You and Sirius are right out, of course. That would leave only —" he glanced at Alderforth.

The old man gave Remus a disbelieving look. "Haven't I just been saying you should 'Run away! Run away!' not traipse off into the lion's den like a fool. And now you expect me to do the very thing I've advised against? For being the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Lupin, you are none too bright."

"Be that as it may," Lupin said calmly, "we still have to save Hermione, and if you will not help us, we will find someone who will." He gestured for the others to follow him, then led the way into a hallway beyond the room and down a flight of rickety steps that led into a back room of the Hog's Head Inn. The group passed into the main room itself, then out the door and into the street.

Remus had taken out his wand again and made several passes of it in the air. "The town has an Anti-Apparition Jinx cast on it, very recently," he announced. "It extends beyond the town's limits —we'll have to walk out a ways before we can Apparate anywhere. It also seems linked to a Caterwauling Charm — if we had tried to Apparate in or out of Hogsmeade we would have set it off and the Aurors would have heard it. Rather clever, except they couldn't have expected us to use the Room of Requirement instead of Apparating or using a Portkey."

"Let's go, then," Harry said, casting a last, grudging glance back at the old man, who was not even watching them leave; he had turned his back to the street and was standing in the doorway of the Hog's Head with something in his hands. Harry shook his head and turned away, disgusted by the old man's attitude.

But before they had gone a dozen steps a voice rang out. "Oi! Hold up! I've got someone with a message for you!" Harry and the other paused and looked back. Alderforth was striding toward them, his hand held out with something in it Harry couldn't quite see. As he drew nearer they saw what he was holding — it was a Galleon. _What was _this_ about_, Harry wondered.

"Here," Alderforth said, thrusting the coin into Harry's hand. "Look at the face," he commanded, when Harry gave him an uncomprehending stare.

"Fred!" Harry exclaimed, recognizing the face on the coin where's Ragnok's image should be. "What's going on?"

"First off," Fred grinned. "Glad to see you out and about again." Fred's image turned serious. "George and I just found out that Ginny is in Hogwarts. Can you confirm that?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, we dropped her off there earlier, she needed medical help we couldn't give her. Pomfrey is taking good care of her, I hear."

"Yeah, so I hear as well," Fred agreed. "But that's liable to end at any time if Malfoy decides to throw her back into Azkaban. George, Ron and I are going to come and get her out of there. We're really grateful you took her out of there when you escaped, Harry."

"I know she's innocent of those murders," Harry said. "I couldn't leave her there. But I've gotta go now, we need to get Hermione out of the Ministry before they send her to Azkaban."

"She's not at the Ministry, Harry," Fred said, looking as unhappy in saying those words as Harry had ever seen him. "Neville overheard Malfoy and Crabbe talking, they forged a document from the Chief Warlock binding her over to Azkaban until trial. She's probably at Azkaban now."

Harry inhaled sharply. That was bad — awful — horrible news. "Thanks for letting me know, Fred," he said, holding his anger back. "And good luck getting Ginny out of Hogwarts."

"You too, Harry," Fred said, and his image dissolved back into a goblin's likeness. Harry handed the coin back to Alderforth and turned to the others, who were staring at him, aghast.

"Well," he said, matter-of-factly. "It looks like it's back to Azkaban we go."

=ooo=

Hermione sat silently in the cell she'd been placed in, a weight of fear and depression pressing down on her, emotions that until she'd been left here she'd sworn to herself she would never succumb to. How quickly things like that could chang now that she was actually a prisoner of Azkaban!

She had been rather more vocal as Goyle had dragged her through the hallways of Hogwarts, out the front doors and out beyond the gates of the school. As he tied her hands with ropes from his wand, she'd demanded her right, the right of all accused witches and wizards of Britain, to stand before the Wizengamot and plead her case. Goyle had merely laughed and immobilized her with a Body Bind curse, then set her upon the back seat of a tandem broomstick, fastened her frozen body in place, pulled a heavy coat from a pouch at his hip then mounted the front seat and they rose into the air.

During the initial part of the flight Hermione, while upset and unsettled (not to mention tied and strapped onto a broom), was at least comforted from her aversion to flying knowing that Goyle was an expert broom flyer; he'd been very good even in his first year at Hogwarts. They weren't likely to crash, though the cold air whipping past her suggested to Hermione that they were flying at top speed. But why even use a broom when a Portkey could get them to London in seconds? The broom would take _hours_.

It was coming on to dusk when they crossed over to sea, dark but easily distinguished from the patchwork light and dark patterns of land below them, and Hermione began to grow apprehensive. Could Goyle be taking her directly to _Azkaban_? That would never hold up before the Wizengamot! Her eyes, the only part of her that still moved, locked onto the back of Goyle's hooded head as she tried to will him to turn around, to look at her and offer some explanation for what he was doing. It made no sense. He would end up in Azkaban himself, Hermione wanted to shout, when this came to light!

_If_ it came to light, she reminded herself. The Aurors in Azkaban didn't often question the orders their superiors at the Ministry gave them, which was why when Hermione was Minister she build in safeguards to protect the rights of the accused: a hearing before a quorum of the Wizengamot before anyone was sent to prison, before the trial ever commenced; an order of incarceration signed by the Chief Warlock ordering the accused be bound over for trial; the changes instituted at the prison itself, to keep prisoners a minimum distance from the Dementors' nest at the base of the prison's central shaft.

It was beginning to rain, and the freezing cold water hitting her face made Hermione close her eyes. Goyle had thought to protect himself against the biting cold of the North Sea (for that was where they must be, she reasoned, if he was not taking her to London and instead crossing over water) but had taken no precautions for her. She could not even shiver, Body-Bound as she was. They flew on, the broom rising and falling turbulently in the wind and rain.

Time passed in cold, wet discomfort, until Hermione felt the broom begin to move steadily downward, and she managed to open her eyes enough to see the towering, three-sided building of steel that was Azkaban. They really had sent her here, against all legal precedent! Malfoy must have gone insane, she thought dully; it was the only reasonable explanation for why she was here. Ironic that she had gonge to Hogwarts to save Harry from Azkaban only to end up here herself!

Goyle descended in an unhurried spiral, landing near one of the vertices of the huge hollow triangular shaped building. Dismounting, he turned amd pointed his wand at Hermione, who felt the Body-Bind spell end, though her hands were still tied and she was still securely fastened to the seat of the broom. Two more waves from Goyle's wand and those bindings fell away, too, and the broom dropped to the steel roof of Azkaban, leaving Hermione floating in the air, supported by a Levitation Charm.

"Well, we're here," Goyle said, a sneer in his voice, and took Hermione's arm and pulled her floating body toward the corner of the building. For a panicky moment Hermione wondered if he would throw her over the edge, but they stopped next to a large steel door set into the roof. Goyle pointed his wand at this door and muttered several words under his breath. The door slowly, clankingly began to open, revealing metal stairs leading downward.

"Can you walk?" Goyle asked her, speaking loudly over the wind and rain beating down on them.

"Of course I can walk," Hermione said, indignantly. "Now that you've removed that unnecessary Body-Bind spell!" The truth was, she was wet and nearly frozen from the cold, but she would be damned it she was going to let one of Malfoy's goons know that!

Goyle shrugged and removed the Levitation Charm; Hermione felt her weight suddenly increase and her legs, cold and unresponsive, nearly buckled beneath her. Goyle took her arm and led her down the stairs, surprisingly gentle considering the mistreatment she'd endured during the ride there.

The stairs went down to a landing, then continued down to a small room with a single door set into one of the walls. A modern-looking intercom was set into the wall next to the door. Goyle pressed a button on the intercom and said, "One prisoner reporting for holding until trial."

A few moments a voice replied tonelessly, "Hold for confirmation." Goyle sighed and leaned against a wall, looking bored. They stood there for what seemed like a long time — five minutes or more, it seemed to Hermione.

"What are they doing?" she asked at last, simply to break the silence.

Goyle shrugged. "Checking with the Ministry to make sure you're supposed to be here."

"I'm not, you know," Hermione pointed out. "The Wizengamot is supposed to be presented evidence supporting my binding over for trial, and the Chief Warlock is supposed to authorize it. None of that happened!"

Goyle waved a hand dismissively. "So you say."

Hermione frowned; she wouldn't get anywhere arguing with someone like Goyle. He was Malfoy's man through and through. It might be better to talk to the Aurors inside — they would recognize the proper protocol.

A few minutes later the door opened. Two Aurors gestured the two of them inside, and Goyle led Hermione into the adjoining room. It was larger than the room they'd been in, but not by much, and furnished with only a few chairs amd an examination table. The room was brightly lit with a silvery light, and Hermione saw a silver dog standing next to a woman, protecting her from the effects of the Dementors. She tried to look around for the other Patronuses but the two Aurors took her by the arms and moved her toward the table.

The woman standing next to the examination table, gestured curtly for Hermione to lie down. Hermione complied, watching anxiously as the woman, whose bright blue robes identified her as a Healer, passed her wand over Hermione's body several times, pausing between each pass. It was nearly a minute before she spoke.

"No illnesses detected," she said to the two red-robed Aurors. "No Animagus form detected. She has no known magical devices implanted within her, either. She's cleared for a standard holding cell."

"But there's been a mistake," Hermione spoke up, then pushed herself to a sitting position. The two Aurors both immediately aimed wands at her. "I'm — I'm not supposed to be here — there was no — I wasn't — I didn't go before the Wizengamot to —"

"We verified that the Chief Warlock signed the order binding you over for trial, ma'am," one of the Aurors said shortly. You are here legally and with the required paperwork from the Ministry."

"But I'm not!" Hermione insisted. "I never even _saw_ the Chief Warlock!"

The Auror shook his head. "That's a lie, ma'am, I can tell that you saw the Chief Warlock!"

"No!" Hermione shook her head. "Not the way you think! He was —" she stopped suddenly, realizing that what had really happened would sound incriminating all by itself. She tried a different tack. "I was brought here directly by _him_ —" she pointed accusingly at Goyle, who only looked bored "— apparently on the direct orders of Minister Malfoy! This is completely illegal!"

"We both saw the orders," the other Auror said, shaking his head. "If you think there's been a problem with procedure, you can take it up during your trial. Until then, you'll be staying in one of our most —" he managed not to smile as he finished the sentence "— accommodating cells." Malfoy had told them to put Granger-Potter as close as possible to the Dementors, but nobody here would do that to someone only bound over for trial. When she came back from the trial properly convicted and sentenced, _then_ they'd let her enjoy the full effects of the few Dementors that were left at the prison.

The two Aurors produced their own Patronuses, an owl and an African wildcat. She was taken from the room and marched down a long corridor to the far end, where she barely noticed the "1-A" on the wall next to the door. One of the Aurors opened the door and they took her down the steps to another door with "2-A" next to the door.

"Here we go," one of the Aurors said. "Our deluxe accommodatings," this time with a smile at his apparent joke. They passed through the door and moved down the corridor almost to the far end before unlocking one of the doors set on the right side of the corridor. Beyond the door was another corridor with four doors along each side, a total of eight cells, Hermione realized.

The Auror pointed his wand at the large iron padlock on the door and it opened with a loud _click_. "Here you go," the Auror said, gesturing her inside. Hermione walked in, looking around slowly.

The room wasn't large, perhaps 10 by 15 feet, and it had only a small bed for furniture, though the bed had a mattress, blankets and a pillow on it. The blankets looked new; they weren't ripped or dirty; the pillow had no cover but otherwise looked clean. There was a metal toilet along one wall and a sink across the room from it. In the four corners at the ceiling were four gas lamps, each one protected by metal screens, each glowing a dim orange. "You're allowed two meals a day," the senior Auror said, one at mid-morning and the other in late afternoon, plus two cups of water in the afternoon. Enjoy."

Without another word the two men turned and strode from the room, closing the door with a loud _clang_. She heard their footsteps moving away, and with each step they took away from her cell the room seemed to become more dark, dismal and depressing. Hermione sat on her bed, wondering how long it would be before she was called back to the Ministry for her trial. If the way Malfoy had acted so far was any indication, it could be quite some time.

None of the Aurors had said anything about Harry. Not even Goyle had mentioned him. Hermione wondered if that was deliberate; she imagined they didn't want to be reminded that one — two, actually — of the most famous prisoners ever imprisoned in Azkaban had just escaped. Did she dare hope that Harry would come for her, after she had all but abandoned him with her self-imposed exile to her (_their_) apartment? For now, all she could do was wait for them to take her back to the Ministry for trial, or wait for Harry to come get her. Either way, she decided, she ought to begin preparing her defense.

=ooo=

"Well, it looks like it's back to Azkaban we go," Harry said, with a resigned shrug. "Shall we go back inside and discuss it?" They turned to reenter the Hog's Head.

"What d'you mean 'we,' paleface?" Sirius asked, only half-joking, as they walked inside.

"Harry, I have to tell you," Tonks spoke up, admiration in her voice for Harry's courage, if not for his common sense at the moment, "Not many people who've ever escaped Azkaban, and there's only been a very few in all these years, would ever consider breaking _back_ in to help someone else. But it's just not a good idea."

"If Minister Malfoy ordered Hermione taken to Azkaban, it is likely he did so with the idea that you would try to rescue her as soon as possible," Remus pointed out. "Azkaban has never been difficult to break _into _— but the majority of those break-ins were by relatives or friends of a prisoner trying to ease the stress of living under the induced fear and depression of the Dementors. That has hardly occurred since conditions were improved in 2005, after Hermione took office. Malfoy must expect you to return and try to free her, Harry."

Harry shook his head stubbornly. "I know that, Remus, but we do have an edge — we know there's a place in the prison we can enter through magical means, like a Portkey."

"Ah, that's right!" Sirius nodded, smiling. He looked at Remus. "The same way we got out — at the bottom of the center core of the building."

"Are you _mental_?" Tonks gasped. "That's right in the middle of the Dementors' nest! There's something like a hundred Dementors down there!"

Harry shook his head again, this time with a grim smile. "Not anymoe. I destroyed them, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, so you said," Tonks replied, skepticism in her voice.

"But I may not have gotten all of them," Harry went on, "and if that's true, they would gather in their nest, making it impossible to cast anti-Apparition and anti-Portkey spells in that area. Dementors drain magic, right? Malfoy may expect me to break into the prison, but he'll expect me to break into the top of the prison, not to appear at the base."  
>"But Hermione will probably be in one of the nicer cells, just below the Auror control center on level 1-A," Tonks pointed out. "However Malfoy expects you to break in, he's going to have her very close to most of the Aurors in the entire prison. And once you find her, you'll still have to get her back out."<p>

Harry didn't reply immediately. What Remus and Tonks had pointed out was true. If he appeared at the base of Azkaban, even if he initially kept his presence from the Aurors there, he would have to make his way up through the prison levels, avoiding any patrols, then fight his way out once Hermione was free. It was a daunting task, and he couldn't ask Sirius to risk it with him — he would have to hope his new-found godfather would want to go with him. "I'll…find a way to do it," he said, trying to make himself sound confident. "I _have_ to, for Hermione."

Tonks nodded at him, bright-eyed, and Sirius stepped forward. "Count me in, Harry. It sounds like you'll need an extra hand. Or paw, perhaps." He held out his hand to Harry.

"Are you sure?" Harry asked. "They're probably right, you know."

"I know," Sirius grinned. "But hell, what's life without a little fun and excitement? I've been sitting on my arse for the past 35 years, _now_ I have something to do again!" Harry nodded and took his hand, shaking it.

The room was suddenly flashing with the lights that signaled a Portkey and three men appeared in the pub amidst a whirlwind of color. Three red-headed men.

"No wonder the entire town has an Apparition ward on it! We're late for a meeting," Fred Weasley said, looking at the others in the room.

"I wonder why they never think to invite us to these things?" George Wealsey pondered aloud.

"Probably because things descend into silliness once we show up," Ron Weasley muttered, but with a crooked smile on his face.

Harry turned, beaming in delight at seeing the three (even Ron), and said, "Hey! Did you guys bring the butterbeer?"

George smiled back and replied, "Thought that was your job, mate. Good to see you out and about, Harry!" He shook Harry's hand.

Fred stepped forward to shake Harry's hand as well. "We're mighty grateful to you for getting Ginny out of Azkaban, Harry. Mum's been — well, she's grateful too, let me tell you."

Harry turned to Ron, who just stared at him for a long moment before extending his hand as well. "Yeah, thanks Harry, for getting her out of that place. I hope you can do the same for H-Hermione."

Harry nodded and shook Ron's hand. "I will," he promised.

"Well, I never thought I'd see so many people go mental in one day," Alderforth observed, resignedly. "But what the hell, I'll add my bit of insanity to the mix. A round of butterbeers for everyone!" Instead of going behind the counter, Alderforth took out his wand and waved it at the bar. Eight bottles of butterbeer floated up and landed in a neat row on the bar. "Drink up!"

The others stepped up to the bar and grabbed a bottle. "A toast!" George yelled. "To success!"

"And to creating Chaos!" Fred added.

"Because Merlin says!" Harry tossed in.

The others in the group looked at each other, a bit confused, but a toast was a toast. Bottles clinked and bottoms tipped upward. Success was the important thing — getting Hermione out of Azkaban, and Ginny out of Hogwarts and away from the Aurors who would sentence them to death.

=ooo=

Minister Malfoy sat back in his soft, comfortable desk chair, smiling wolfishly as he slipped the small box he'd just been listening to into his most secure desk drawer. The conversation he'd been eavesdropping on had been quite informative, and he would make sure his men were ready for what was coming their way.

Two large Aurors stood nearby, both smiling, for it wasn't often the Minister let them listen in when he used the box to eavesdrop on conversations. This one, held in the shabbiest pub in Hogsmeade, had revealed quite a few illegal activites that would be attempted in the next few minutes.

"Make sure we have three teams Disillisuioned and warded against detection in and around the Hogwarts infirmary," he told them. "And alert the teams at the prison that they should expect company coming up from the lower levels. I don't want any slip-ups this time."

Crabbe and Goyle both nodded. They weren't sure how close Minister Malfoy had come to firing (or cursing) them, but he'd been _scary mad_ when he first learned that Potter, Black and Lupin weren't even in Hogwarts castle after teams had locked down the seventh floor corridor leading to the Room of Requirement for more than an hour. And it had only been a wild coincidence that they'd learned _that _— the Minister had been killing time listening to various locatons where he had secreted bugs — a Muggle term for covert listening devices, but magical in nature — purchased from the Weasley electronics store under assumed identities. He'd overheard the conversation in the Hog's Head and began listening in earnest. Alderforth Dumbledore acting as a front for the Weasleys selling magic-proofed electronics gadgets to the students of Hogwarts was one thing; participating (even indirectly) in break-ins of Azkaban and Hogwarts itself was quite another. The two Aurors turned and hurried from the room, leaving Malfoy alone to anticipate the sweet victories he would soon have over Potter and the Weasleys (and eventually Granger, too, as she languished in prison awaiting her trial). The thought made him smile again.

_And don't forget who you owe this to_, a voice in the back of his head reminded him, making Draco lower his head unconsciously. No, he wouldn't forget. His life had changed forever the moment he'd taken the wand from Ginny Weasley and the memories of the Dark Lord and those joined with him had flooded his mind.

He was now easily the smartest, most powerful, most _knowledgeable_ wizard in the world, smarter and stronger than even Dumbledore had been at his peak, and it would not take much more time before the Ministry was fully under his control. And from there, Europe, then Asia, then the Americas, then…the world. Malfoy smiled with anticipation. Soon, very soon, he would control it all.


	30. For All the Marbles, Part 1

**Chapter Thirty  
><strong>**For All the Marbles****  
><strong>

_Updated_ 7/12/2013

=ooo=

Four former students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry stared at the wall running along the northern boundary of the school, not far from the gates but beyond the edge of the wards protecting the school. And further away than where the Marauder's Map would begin showing them when activated.

The oldest of the four glanced at the three redheads. "I hope you had a plan before coming here," she said, plaintively.

"A plan? Pffft," the next-oldest waved a hand airly as he repled. "That would ruin the fun of it!"

"I really don't want to get caught," the pink-haired Auror pointed out. "Maybe you three should just go ahead on your own, if you haven't figured out what you're going to do yet."

"We didn't say that," the third-oldest objected. "We know what we're doing, we just didn't plan it out ahead of time."

"Yeah, that would be boring," the youngest redhead agreed. "Even if we are trying to snatch our only sister away from the Aurors guarding her and hide her where they'll never find her."

"Yeah," the renegade Auror said skeptically. "I think you'd better plan on finding someone who can cast a Fidelius for you. The Auror Department takes a dim view of prisoners escaping from Azkaban — they will look for her anywhere and everywhere they think she might be."

"I'm sure they will," the elder redheaded twin agreed. "But short of accidentally including an Auror in the Fidelius —" both twins smiled at this. "I don't think they stand a puffskein's chance in a nundu's lair of finding her."

"So what _are_ we doing?" the youngest of the group wanted to know. "We're assuming Malfoy has the Marauder's Map, right?"

"Right you are, Ronnikins," the twins answered. "He'd be foolish to trust the security system _we_ designed. Especially since we've already told it to ignore our presence here at Hogwarts."

"Nice," the Auror said, somewhat impressed. "You added a backdoor to your system."

"That's a secret, of course," the elder twin put a finger over his lips. "Don't tell Nevillie. He still doesn't know we're selling our wares in the Gryffindor common room every third Saturday of the month."

Tonks giggled. "My lips are sealed, then." She cocked her head, her hair turning a curious yellow. "So how are you getting past the Marauder's Map, then?  
>"We're not," George said. "Can't be done, and we've tried a lot of different ways, but it doesn't matter — if you're a ghost, an Animagus, Disillusioned, or whatever, the Map knows where you are. The only thing that might work is Harry's Invisibility Cloak, and we don't have that at our disposal right now. More than likely Malfoy has got that as well. We talked to Hermione after Harry went into Azkaban and she told us the Ministry came and cleaned out every magical item in their apartment. Shut down all the wards and protection spells. Left her pretty much defenseless. We offered to put up some protection spells for her but she said she didn't want us getting into trouble." George shook his head. "Wish she'd reconsidered."<p>

"Okay, so if Malfoy sees us on the Marauder's Map our gooses are collectively cooked," Tonks said, her pessimism beginning to feel warranted. "That's not good. It's a long way from the gates of Hogwarts to the infirmary."

"Oh, we're not going to _walk_ into Hogwarts. Not even one of the secret passages would keep from beign seen on the Map. We're taking a short cut," Fred told her, reaching into his robe and taking out a metallic ring about a foot in diameter. He held it out for her to see: the ring was a dark metal with runes carved into the top.

"We got the basic idea from this when were still in school, when we saw some upperclassmen creating rune arches," Fred continued, flipping the ring over to reveal more runes on its opposite side. "But it's been harder to implement than we expected." He reached into his robes and pulled out another ring, this one identical to the first, then put it away again.

"Our first idea," Fred continued, "was to create a ring that we could use to Apparate through the wards around the school to anywhere within the school or grounds."

"Our basic problem," George went on, "was how much magic a ring big enough for three or four persons was required to Apparate through the wards. You could do it, but you ended up weak and magically drained when you landed. That increased the chance of Splinching when you tried to Apparate a second or third time. It's also a problem carrying around big metal rings that are each three or four feet in diameter."

Ron took up the story at that point. "But then one of us —" Ron pointed a thumb at himself "— had the brilliant idea of asking if we could just use a smaller ring to create a Portkey rather than Apparate. With a Portkey you can't get Splinched. It took off from there."

"Meaning," Fred said, leaning conspiratorially toward Tonks, "that Ronnie here came up with the idea, but George and I had to figure out how to make it happen. Which we did," he finished proudly, holding up the ring again.

"And what does _this_ wonderful ring do?" Tonks asked, patiently.

"It creates a small area within an anti-Portkey ward that will let us key into the ward when we create a Portkey," George explained. "We can then use the Portkey to go anywhere within the anti-Portkey ward area we want."

"The only problem with _that_," Ron added, "is that some wizards create their wards to change harmonics whenever a keyed-in spell or item is activated. "And Neville Longbottom is one of those wizards."

Tonks nodded. "So the Portkey is only good for one use, right?"

"Give the little lady a gold ring!" Fred beamed. "Yes, that's why we have a second ring to use to get out of the school — using the first ring drains its magic."

"And what if your ring doesn't work?" Tonks wanted to know.

"It will," Fred said confidently.

"Humor me for a moment," she insisted.

Fred scratched his chin, looking at George, who made a shrugging gesture and indicated he should go ahead and answer. "Well, in the best case we won't be able to create the Portkey in the first place — the wards at the destination would prevent that — and in the worst case, we will bounce off the ward and end up in some random location; whether that location is above or below ground, or inside some object, we wouldn't know until we got there."

"Nice," Tonks said sarcastically. "How sure are you that this _will_ work?"

"Definitely," Fred answered at once.

"Pretty sure," George said at the same time.

"Fairly sure," Ron said at the same time. The three brothers looked at each other, then at Tonks.

"We're sure," Fred finished. "Trust us."

Tonks shook her head dubiously but said nothing. At least they had a way in and out.

"So the plan," George summed up, "is to create the Portkey, drop into the infirmary, have you and Ron grab Ginny while Fred and I make the second Portkey, and head out to an as-yet undisclosed location where Ginny will be safe. Total time in Hogwarts, about ten seconds."

"And if Malfoy's not looking at the Map during that time," Tonks surmised, "they'll never know anyone was there until they realize Ginny's missing."

"That's the rumor," Fred nodded. He held out the rune ring in front of him and looked around at the others. "Are we ready to go?"

Tonks, George and Ron nodded assent. "Everyone line up with me," Fred said, and they began moving forward slowly. "We have to find the edge of the Portkey ward, then George will cast the spell on the object — what are we using?"

Ron held up a shot glass still filled with firewhiskey. "I didn't think old Alderforth would miss it," he grinned.

Tonks made a face, but Fred and George both beamed. "Excellent!" they said in unison. Ron drank a bit of the firewhiskey, then passed the glass to George, who drank and passed it to Fred. Fred knocked back most of the glass, then held it out to Tonks. Tonks looked at the little bit of firewhiskey still in the glass, shrugged, and downed the rest. At that moment the black ring in Fred's hands began to glow a pale blue.

"Alright, it's inside the Portkey ward," Fred said quickly. "Cast the spell!"

George put the now-empty shot glass in the middle of the ring and pointed his wand at it. "_Portus_," he said, and the glass flashed blue. "Five seconds," George warned everyone.

Fred put the first ring into his robes as he, Tonks and Ron each put a finger on the Portkey. "Everyone remember your jobs —" he said, then a whirlwind of color scooped them up and they vanished.

=ooo=

The Portkey whirlwind deposited the four of them in the center of the infirmary, all landing expertly on their feet. "There she is!" Fred said, pointing to a corner where a screen hid the bed from view.

"Waitaminute!" Ron said, pointing toward another corner, where an identical screen was set up. "What about that one?"

Fred spun around, cursing to himself. "They set up multiple screens!" he rasped. "Check them all!" He sprinted toward the one he'd pointed to, pointing his wand and knocking the screen aside. There was no one in the bed.

"Aaaaaah!" a girl in a nearby bed screamed at seeing an unknown adult wizard throwing things around in the infirmary.

"Quiet!" Fred hissed, turning and running back to the center of the room. Tonks, Ron and George had each gone to an opposite corner looking for Ginny. "Not here!" Tonks said loudly, looking behind her screen.

"Not here either!" George's shout followed right behind Tonks. "She's supposed to be in here!"

"Over here," Fred spun toward the barely audible words. Ginny was in a bed in plain view near Madam Pomfrey's office. He raced over to the bed and picked her up.

"Ginny! Are you okay?" Fred asked her anxiously. She nodded weakly. "Here she is! Let's get out of here!"

Tonks, George and Ron turned and ran toward Fred and Ginny. But as Ron ran past a bed, an arm reached out and caught at his pants leg, causing him to stumble. He reached down and grabbed the hand holding his pants leg, trying to make it let go.

The patient reached out with her other hand, grabbing his pants leg again, and Ron hissed "Let go!" then gasped as he looked at the face of the person in the bed. The girl in the bed had jet-black hair, but her face was Ginny's. Her mouth moved but nothing came out, and she pointed at her throat. Ron pointed his wand at her and said, "_Vocalis_!" the countercurse for the Silencio spell. "Ron, it's me," she whispered. "Other Ginny — Polyjuice…"

"Fred!" Ron immediately shouted. "Polyjuice!"

Fred instantly dropped the girl in his arms, drawing his wand as he did so. The girl was drawing hers at the same time, but Ron managed to shout "_Stupefy_!" before she got off a spell. She hit the bed, unconscious, and Fred followed with "_Polyfluis Reverso_!" Ginny's form began to melt, and Fred turned and ran toward Ron, with Tonks and George converging on him and Ginny at the same time.

Fred pulled out the second ring as he ran toward them. Ron picked up Ginny and held her ready as George drew the second Portkey from his robes, a Fanged Frisbee and jammed it into the center of the black ring Fred held. "_Portus_," George said, and the Frisbee flashed blue.

All hell broke loose.

At least four "patients" in beds around the infirmary suddenly sat up, pointing their wands at either Tonks and the Weasleys or into the air. Tonks instinctively raised a shield encompassing the group at the first unexpected motion. Curses bounced off the shield; Tonks smirked as at least one "patient" was knocked out by his own Stunner — she'd managed to twist the spell as it ricocheted off her shield back at him.

"Grab the Frisbee!" Fred yelled. "Five seconds — NO!" He suddenly knocked the Portkey out of George's hand.

"What's wrong?" Ron yelled, staring as the toy bounced off Tonks shield. "Why'd you —" Everyone inside the shield flinched as the Frisbee suddenly exploded and at the same time became a rainbow-hued whirlwind and vanished. "Holy shit!" Ron exclaimed. "What happened?!"

"They put up more Portkey wards," Fred said. "We didn't test for that! The Frisbee thought it was good to go but those extra wards stopped it. If we'd gone with it we'd be —"

"We're still going to be," Tonks warned, "if we don't get out of here. A couple of those 'kids' who were playing possum in the beds are casting Breaking Drill Hexes on my shield!"

Fred shook his head. "I knew I should have made three rune rings," he muttered, then looked up at them, beaming. "Oh wait! I did!" He pulled a third ring from his robes.

"Freddie, I could kiss you!" George laughed, patting his twin on both cheeks.

"Well, don't," Fred warned, holding out the third ring. "No need to make Angelina jealous."

"Is that going to work?" Tonks asked, wincing as she poured more magic into her shield, fighting the Breaking Drills being applied to it. "There are multiple Portkey wards holding us here."

"It can handle them if the Portkey is set _after_ they're up," Fred said. "I did tests for multiple wards. Hurry up and cast the spell, George!"

George was looking around frantically for something to charm. "What do I use?"

"Oh for Merlin's sake!" Ron snapped. He reached down and pulled a trainer off one of his feet. "Here!"

George grabbed the shoe and stuck it into the ring Fred held. "_Portus_!" he said, and everyone grabbed hold of the shoe. There was flash of whirling colors inside Tonks' shield, which popped out of existence as the whirlwind died away.

A fourth-year girl in blonde curls reached into her hospital robe and pulled out a two-way mirror. "They Ported out," she said. "As you expected, sir."

"Good," Malfoy's image in the mirror smiled. "Did the Portkey detection charm catch their destination?"

The blonde concentrated for a moment. "It did," she confirmed. "I can charm another Portkey and be down in the Entrance Hall in less than a minute."

"Make two," Malfoy said. "We're done here for now. And drop that ridiculous disguise."

"Yes, sir." The blonde stood, casting Polyfluis Reverso on herself, growing several feet in height and becoming Vincent Crabbe. He picked up two trays, casting word-trigger Portkeys on each of them, then ran out of the infirmary for the Entrance Hall. The Weasleys and the traitorous Auror Tonks were about to have a rude surprise show up at their "secret" location!

=ooo=

"Ready for this?" Remus asked.

Harry and Sirius both nodded. Their wands were out and ready, and Harry was breathing slowly in preparation for the spell he had to cast immediately upon arrival at their destination. It was not going to be easy, because they would be at ground zero, and it would not be pleasant.

Remus handed a shot glass to Sirius, who held it for several seconds before finally pointing his wand at it and saying, "_Portus_." The glass glowed blue and Sirius said, "I set it for fifteen seconds, in case you need a running start, Harry."

Harry nodded again. He reached out and took an edge of the glass in forefinger and thumb. Remus and Sirius did the same. While the Weasleys had something of a plan (Fred just shrugged when asked before they left, but Harry knew they never leaped before they looked) his strategy was a bit less developed. Nevertheless, Remus and Sirius were still coming with him, and he was grateful. And he hoped they could make it in and out Askaban before the Aurors even knew they were there.

It wasn't very likely, but if he could find Hermione and get back in the central shaft, where the magical protections were drained away by the Dementors, they could enchant another Portkey to take them out and back to — somewhere.

The Portkey activated and an invisible hook pulled Harry forward into a whirlwind of color, spinning him and the two Marauders with him. They were pulled forward, twisting color and howling winds all about them, until Harry's feet slammed into what felt like mud.

They were atop the mound of dirt that was the nesting place of the remaining Dementors of Azkaban. Harry immediately began casting the Patronus Charm, while Remus and Sirius checked for the hole Harry had made in the wall at the lowest level of the prison.

"_Expecto Patronum_!" Harry's Patronus blazed into existence, hovering above him and protecting him and the others. The few remaining Dementors, floating higher in the air shaft, moved away but otherwise did not seem to notice them.

The hole Harry had made was still in the wall, left unplugged. Remus followed the hole down along the side of the building to where a great round section of the wall lay near the bottom of the Dementor mound. "That's…impressive," he muttered to Sirius. "Partial Transfiguration?"

Sirius shrugged. "That's what he said. I've been meaning to ask him to explain but I don't think we've had a spare minute since we got out."

"A spare minute for what?" Harry asked from behind them.

"Explaining Partial Transfiguration," Remus said. "Albus told me once you could do it and I've been meaning to ask for a demonstration, but —" he gestured at the section of wall below them. "— I'd say that qualifies."

"Where do you think Hermione is?" Harry asked of no one in particular.

It was Sirius who answered. "The holding cells for prisoners bound over for trial is in section 2-A. Assuming the Aurors didn't act like complete assholes, that's probably where she's at. That means a long climb up this bitch."

Harry grimaced. "What if the Aurors _were_ assholes?" he asked. "That means they could have put Hermione in any one of the cells between here and there, doesn't it?"

Sirius and Remus glanced at each other. "Well, yes," Remus admitted. "Or Malfoy could have ordered them to put her close to the Dementors."

"Shit," Harry muttered. "We'll have to check every cell on our way up."

"I will be able to locate her," Harry's Patronus, who had been floating above the three of them, spoke at last.

"Oh, yeah," Harry muttered, irritated that he should have remembered that on his own and hadn't. "Good."

Remus put a hand on Harry's shoulder to get his attention. "We shouldn't use magic, by the way — the Dementors can't detect us with your Patronus nearby, but they might be able to sense any magic we perform and warn the Aurors."

Harry looked up at the hole in the wall above them. "How are we getting up there without magic, then?"

"I've got that covered," Remus said, reaching into his robes and taking out a mokeskin pouch. He reached inside and said, "Rope ladder," and "magnetic bar," removing both items from the pouch. He attached the top of the rope ladder to two clasps on the bar, then handed one side to Sirius, pointing upward toward the hole. "Aim for just below the bottom lip," he instructed, and he and Sirius threw the bar upward.

The bar hit the wall a foot below the hole with a loud _clang_ and stuck. "Now we simply climb up the rope," he told Harry and Sirius, smiling triumphantly. "No magic needed." A minute later the three of them were standing inside the hole Harry had made barely a day ago. Remus retrieved his rope and magnetic bar and returned them to his pouch. "We should start looking for Hermione," he said, unnecessarily.

"Like this?" Sirius asked. "What about Disillusionment Charms, at least?"

Remus folded his arms, looking thoughtful. "Harry, I noticed the Dementors don't seem to sense our presence," he said, gesturing to the dark-cloaked entities floating a dozen yards or so above them. "Is your Patronus preventing them from stealing our emotions?"

Harry nodded. "Even more than that — we become invisible to them, like we're not even here. They don't even seem to sense the Patronus except to avoid getting too near to it."

"If that's the case," Remus mused, "we might be able to cast some personal magic on ourselves without their noticing it. We can test that." He raised his wand over his head.

"Wait a second," Harry said, stopping him. "What if it doesn't work?"

"Then the Dementors will likely inform the Aurors in the control center that magic was performed somewhere in the prison, and they will investigate," Remus hypothesized. "But if they do not sense our presence then a magical spell performed only our persons will very likely not be sensed, either. Disillusionment isn't our best protection, but it's better than nothing."

Harry couldn't argue about that. He gestured for Remus to go ahead. The Chief Warlock tapped himself on the head. There was a sound like eggs cracking, and Remus faded from view. Harry looked up. The three Dementors still hovered above them, oblivious to their presence and seemingly to the magic that had just been performed.

"Looks like it worked," Sirius said, beaming. "Good job, Moony!" He took out his own wand and repeated the spell on himself. Harry did the same. In a few moments only the Patronus remained visible.

"All right, let's go," Harry said, and his Patronus began walking down the corridor to the main hallway of section 9-A, with the three wizards following it closely. As they walked, Harry noticed that the gas lamps along the walls were not lit; if it weren't for the light of his Patronus they would walking in complete darkness. That was not going to make things any easier for them, but at least they could see for now.

Only eight more levels, eight more trips around the perimeter of Azkaban, before they could find Hermione, get themselves and her out of here and somewhere safe, and Harry could begin to deal with Voldemort directly again.

=ooo=

Five figures appeared in the backyard of the Burrow amidst a whirlwind of color. A moment later the backdoor burst open and a tearful Molly Weasley rushed toward the group sobbing, "Ginny, oh Ginny!" She hugged both Ginny and Ron, who was still holding her, as Fred, George and Tonks stood smiling happily (and also a little sadly) at the scene.

All too soon, Molly stopped hugging and started talking, her manner suddenly brisk and efficient. "Alright, then. We need to get Ginny to safety right away. Can she walk?" she asked Ron.

"I can walk, Mum," Ginny said, her voice a raspy whisper. "Put me down, Ron." Ron complied, but still held onto her as her feet touched the ground. As he started to let her take her weight her legs began to wobble. She looked at Ron. "I think I need a Pepper-Up," she said, huskily.

"I have some in the house!" Molly said, turning to run inside.

"Never mind," Ginny called, her voice louder than before. Turning back to Ron, she said, "Hit me."

Ron grinned and punched her softly in the arm with his free hand. "Ha-ha," Ginny snarled. "You prat. Hit me with a Rennervate, doofus."

Smiling, Ron pulled out his wand and held the tip a few inches from her chest. "_Rennervate_," he said, and Ginny jerked as the spell took effect. She took a step away from Ron, but still held his shoulder.

"I think that's done it," she said, nodding. "Now, where are we going?"

"Come with me, dear," Molly said, putting an arm around Ginny to help her.

"Mum," Fred said, stopping her and Ginny. He turned to Tonks. "Maybe you should go with them," he suggested. "You might want to disappear for a while."

"Where are they going?" Tonks asked, warily.

"We set up a special place for Ginny to hide when we busted her out of Azkaban," Fred explained. "Mum's the Secret Keeper."

"Good advice," George told Tonks. "Can't imagine Malfoy will be happy with you, especially if he saw your name with ours on the Marauder's Map."

"Probably not," Tonks agreed unhappily. She looked torn about going into hiding. Finally, she sighed resignedly. "Okay, what the hell. I can keep Ginny company." She walked over to where Molly and Ginny were waiting for her and put an arm around Ginny as well, helping to support her.

"Don't worry, dear," Molly patted Tonks on the shoulder. "Everything will be fine, my boys will see to that. Now, let's get you and Ginny squared away." The three of them walked out into the back yard toward the old broom shack that stood behind their garden. Molly whispered something into Ginny's ear, then leaned behind her and whispered something to Tonks. Looking back at her sons, she made a spinning motion with her finger.

Fred and George immediately turned around, and Ron followed suit. When they looked back a minute later, the three women were gone.

"Well, that's that," Fred said happily, slumping with exhaustion. He rubbed his neck tiredly and looked at George. "D'you think Mum has any butterbeers in the —"

All hell broke loose again.

A dozen Aurors suddenly popped into existence around Fred, George and Ron, surrounding them. "Go!" Fred shouted, but when he tried to Disapparate he slammed into an Anti-Disapparition ward. He shook his head, dazed by the unpleasant sensation.

Several cries of "_Expelliarmus_!" and three wands flew into the air, leaving the Weasley brothers unable to attack, defend, or escape. They automatically put their backs to each other, ready to do something — anything — if any of the Aurors came close enough to them.

There were a few final Apparition _cracks_ some distance away. A moment later Draco Malfoy stepped into the ring of Aurors surrounding them, followed by Crabbe and Goyle. "_Here_ you are," he said with mock surprise. "You know, I thought I _just_ saw your names on a certain piece of parchment you used to have. Would you know anything about that?"

Fred hesitated only a moment before letting his defensive posture flow into an elaborate half-bow directed toward Malfoy. "Evening, Minister," he said. "Nice of you to drop by. I see you brought a few friends with you. You saw our names on a piece of parchment, you say? I've no doubt you have many pieces of parchment with our names on them," he smiled.

Malfoy smiled as well. "It was a _particular_ piece of parchment, as I'm sure you recall. It's titled 'The Marauder's Map.' Quite an interesting document, if I do say so — it shows the castle grounds and every being at Hogwart, whether they're living, a ghost, or whatever."

George and Ron frowned worriedly, but Fred's smile remained in place. "That's very interesting, Minister. But —" Fred leaned forward, a curious expression on his face. "How do you know that what this so-called Marauder's Map is showing you is real?"

Malfoy snorted derisively. "What would make you think it's not, Weasley?"

"Did the Hogwarts security system record that any of us were there?" Fred asked.

"No," Malfoy snapped. "But you designed the security system, probably using the Map!"

"If that were true, wouldn't our names have shown up in the security system, then?" Fred pointed out.

"Not if you keyed yourself into the system and told it to ignore you!"

Fred shrugged; he'd let Malfoy have that point. But — "For another thing," he went on, "Hogwarts is Unplottable, so you _can't_ show its layout on a map."

"But it clearly does!" Malfoy argued. He took a blank piece of parchment out of his robes and shook it at Fred. "I saw your name appear on it!"

Fred chuckled. "You saw the words 'Fred Weasley' on a piece of parchment that's supposed to be of an Unplottable location. Come now, Minister — doesn't that sound a bit silly to you?"

"No," Malfoy growled. "I watched your name appear at the edge of the Map, then suddenly it was in the infirmary. All of your names, in fact," he added, pointing at George and Ron, who were now facing Malfoy behind Fred, grinning.

"But you can't Apparate within the grounds of Hogwarts," Fred merrily pointed out, enjoying this little cat-and-mouse game with Malfoy, keeping him distracted from his real mission here. "You should know that, Minister."

"You used a Portkey," Malfoy growled, not liking this game at all.

"Portkeys are warded, too," Fred shook his head. "How could we get through the wards?"

"It doesn't matter," Malfoy snarled dismissively. "We're not here to debate the hows or whys of the Marauder's Map —!"

"That's good, because you clearly don't know much about it," Fred retorted, deadpan. George and Ron both lowered their heads to smother their laughter.

"We're _here_," Malfoy said loudly, finally losing his patience, "to arrest you three, as well as Auror Nymphadora Tonks, on the charge of freeing a prisoner that was being held in the infirmary until she could be returned to prison — your sister, Ginevra Weasley Thomas. Where is she?"

Fred glanced back at Ron and George, both of whom just shrugged. "We don't know where she is," he told Malfoy.

"What about in there?" Malfoy asked, jerking a thumb at the Burrow. "You sure you don't know, Weasley? Because if you do and you don't tell us, it's obstruction of justice."

"What do you want me to do, chug a bottle of Veritaserum?" Fred sneered. "I really can't tell you where she is." Which was true enough; Fred knew there was a location protected by a Fidelius Charm, but he couldn't tell Malfoy anything about it — neither he, George nor Ron were the Secret Keeper.

"Where's your mother, Molly?" Malfoy asked.

"We don't know," Ron answered in an irritated tone. "Maybe you should go look for her!"

"Do you want to file a missing wizard report?" Malfoy asked, blandly. Without waiting for an answer he turned to his Auror Teams. "Search the house and the yard. I want Level Three searches on everything."

The three Weasley brothers were escorted to the edge of the Burrow's property to watch the searches unfold. "What do you think?" George muttered as they stood there just outside the perimeter established by the Aurors.

"Level Three is pretty thorough," Fred said softly, after checking that there were no Extendable Ears or other spy spells on them. "But it still won't find a Fidelius. I'm just glad none of us are the Secret Keeper — they can't make us take Veritaserum and force the location out of us."

"Hurray," Ron muttered. "It still looks like we'll be going to Azkaban ourselves."

"Man up, Ronnie," Fred said, giving him a disapproving glare. "Better us than Ginny." Ron nodded agreement, though he still wasn't happy about it.

A few minutes later the search looked to be winding down. Of course neither Ginny nor Molly had turned up in the search. Malfoy was conferring with his two right-hand goons, Crabbe and Goyle — probably with a Quietus Charm in place to prevent anyone from overhearing them.

"They look a bit miffed," George dryly observed.

"They don't like it much when they lose at hide-and-seek," Ron quipped.

"Their next move will be to interrogate us," Fred muttered, still keeping his voice low. "They've probably guessed a Fidelius is in place, but we don't want to give them _any_ more information."

"We can't, can we?" Ron frowned. "I mean, it's a bloody Fidelius, for Merlin's sake! The magic prevents us from talking about it if anyone who doesn't know about it could hear us!"

"That's the idea," Fred agreed, "but stay on your toes anyway."

Two Aurors came over and walked the trio back to where Malfoy and his subordinates were standing. Malfoy appeared to be reading a report, but nobody believed he was really reading — it was more likely a ploy to psych out the Weasleys, who didn't appear to be falling for it.

Malfoy finally looked up at them. His expression was calm and collected, though his eyes — Fred watched the man's grey eyes as they stared at him and his brothers; there seemed to be no respect or compassion at all there. "Well, your sister and mum aren't here, of course," he said, quietly. "Nor is Auror Tonks, who we also saw was with you at Hogwarts."

"Maybe that's what that supposed Map showed you," Fred hedged. "But unless you can bring them to the Wizengamot all you have is us. And we don't know where any of them are."

"That remains to be seen," Malfoy replied. He stood quietly for several moments, rubbing his chin with an index finger, staring at the three Weasleys. "I might be wrong, but I think there's a Fidelius involved in all this. What do you think?" His grey eyes moved from Fred to George then back to Ron; if he was using Legilimency it was hard to tell, there was no wand in his hand.

The three brothers shook their heads and Fred answered for them. "You can think whatever you like, Malfoy, but we don't know where they are and we wouldn't tell you if we did. If that means you're going to take us in for obstruction of justice, do what you've gotta do."

"I suppose we could go that way," Malfoy murmured, waving a hand airily, "but I think we'll just dispense with the bureaucratic bullshit and get right down to it." He pointed at George. "Him first."

Goyle's wand was instantly out. "_Crucio_!" he shouted and George dropped to the ground, screaming in agony.

"Malfoy! WHAT THE FUCK?! STOP IT!" Both Fred and Ron were screaming at the Minister. They tried to charge forward into Goyle, to knock him down and stop the curse, but Impediment Jinxes from other Aurors held them back.

After about ten seconds Goyle raised his wand and George stopped screaming, though he was still gasping loudy as aftershocks of the pain reverberated in his brain. Malfoy was giving Fred an even look. "Want to tell us now where your sister and mum are?" he asked, expectantly.

"You maniac!" Fred screamed. "You can't use Unforgiveables on people!"

Malfoy smiled. "You don't think so, Weasley? Didn't you read that I reinstituted the Monroe Act when I took over as Minister? The Wizengamot approved it by a wide margin."

"You mean your father's bought-and-paid-for votes approved it," Fred snarled. He bent down to check on his broher. "All right there, George?" he asked quietly.

"Oh, yeah, I'm having a ball," George said, his voice barely a whisper.

"Ready to tell us where they are?" Malfoy asked. "Or do you need more convincing?"

Fred stood furiously, facing Malfoy. "I don't know!" he shouted angrily. "I'm not —" he hesitated. "I've got nothing to tell you," he finished.

Malfoy gestured toward Crabbe, who whipped out his wand and pointed it at Ron. "_Crucio_!" he cried, and Ron fell to the ground screaming.

"Stop! Stop!" Fred pleaded, watching helplessly as his youngest brother thrashed around on the ground. "Crucio _me_ if you think I'm the Secret Keeper!"

"Who said I think _that_?" Malfoy asked, shrugging.

"Stop it! Stop it, you bastards!" A new voice made several Aurors spin around, their wands at the ready, where they saw Molly Weasley charging toward them from the backyard of the Burrow. "Leave them alone!"

Molly was quickly disarmed and captured, then brought to Malfoy. She glared defiantly up at him as he smiled condescendingly at her. "Mrs. Weasley, I'm so pleased you decided to join us. I hope you can put an end to this futile resistance your sons have been putting up in an effort to protect your daughter."

Molly was older and thinner, but she'd lost none of the temper she was famous for in her earlier days. "Malfoy, you horrid, pathetic little worm, how you ever managed to become Minister of Magic I'll never understand! In a month you've managed to set back years of progress in the Wizarding world! If you think you're _ever_ going to see Ginny again you are sadly mistaken! She's safely away from your horrible prison and she's _never_ going back!"

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," Malfoy said, coldly. He was infuriated by the tongue-lashing this old woman was giving him but none of it showed in his cool, calm demeanor. "I assume _you_ are the Secret Keeper for your daughter's Fidelius hideaway?"

Molly hesitated a bare moment before answering. "Of course not!" she snapped. "Why would I come here if I knew you were looking for that person, assuming there _is_ a Secret Keeper in the first place!"

"Well, we can easily find out," Malfoy said mildly, giving a nod to Crabbe.

The big Auror pointed his wand at Molly. "_Crucio_!"

Molly fell to the ground, screams ripped from her by the agonizing pain the Cruciatus Curse produced. The three Weasley brothers started to jump forward, but wands pointed at them from all directions forced them to stand still, watching in anguish as their mother suffered horribly.

After what seemed like an eternity Crabbe lowered his wand, leaving Molly sobbing in silence. "You know," Malfoy said casually, examining his fingernails, "I can have them keep this up all day. You'll probably go insane after a few minutes, but a few drops of Veritaserum _might_ get you to tell where your daughter is hidden. And if not," he shrugged indifferently. "Well, she'll have to leave her hidey-hole eventually to get food, supplies, and so on, because everyone else here will be in Azkaban or St. Mungo's and won't be able to help her at all." Malfoy looked at the Aurors surrounding the Weasley brothers. "Let them go to her — this will probably be the last time they ever see her again."

The Aurors stepped back and the three brothers rushed to Molly's side. Fred knelt and lifted her head tenderly. Molly was trembling from the effects of the Cruciatus. George leaned close to her and whispered, "Mum, you can't take much more of that. Tell them _I'm_ the Secret Keeper."

"No, me," Fred whispered in her other ear. "Tell them it's Fred."

"You know we can hear you morons whispering," Malfoy said, and several Aurors around him laughed derisively. "You'd better hurry up and agree on who the Secret Keeper is before we Crucio the lot of you and go to Plan B."

Ron looked up at Malfoy in rage. Without speaking he suddenly launched himself upward, swinging wildly, and one of his fists connected with Malfoy's nose, breaking it and making the Minister stagger back in pain.

Malfoy held his nose in both hands, shock and pain written across his face, as Ron watched him, teeth bared and arms ready to begin flailing again. Malfoy's eyes seemed to flash red for a moment before his hand moved. Faster than anyone imagined, his wand was out and he slashed it at Ron, screaming "_Sectumsempra_!"

Ron fell to the ground , a slash across his chest rapidly turning his shirt red. His left arm spun away, sliced at mid-forearm, and fell in the dirt. "Get him to St. Mungo's," Malfoy said painfully, cupping his nose with his free hand, and two Aurors took hold of Ron; one activated his emergency Portkey and the three of them vanished. Another Auror hurried forward and looked at Malfoy's injury, applying a quick spell to fix the nose. Malfoy irritably waved her away and looked down at Molly and the remaining Weasleys who were staring at him in horror.

"What have you done to Ron?" Fred whispered, mentally cringing at the memory of Ron's arm flopping to the ground.

"Will they be able to reattach that arm?" George asked anxiously, worried because it had been magically severed.

"I'm afraid not," Malfoy said coldly. "They'll be able to fix the wound to his chest, but the arm is gone forever." He touched his nose gingerly. "He shouldn't have attacked me, so he got what he deserved."

"What he _deserved_?!" Molly Weasley bolted upright despite still being weak from the Cruciatus. "You bloody bastard! If you want to talk about what's deserved you deserve to be chopped to bits and fed to a nundu!"

"That sounded like a threat," Malfoy said dangerously, pointing his wand at the Weasleys as a group. "I am no longer in the mood to hear threats —"

"All right, _enough_," a new voice said. Ginny Thomas and Tonks were standing just beyond the ring of Aurors watching Malfoy and the Weasley brothers.

Molly Weasley had heard her daughter's voice. "Ginny, noooo!" she moaned, covering her face with her hands.

"Sorry, Mum," Ginny said. "This has gone too far already." To Malfoy she said, "Alright, Minister, I'm here. Let my mum and brothers go."

Malfoy shook his head, looking very happy. "Can't do that, Thomas. They're guilty of aiding and abetting a convicted murderer. And so are you, Auror," he added, staring coldly at Tonks. "I'm very disappointed, as are your fellow Aurors, I'm sure."

"Give me a break," Tonks retorted hotly. "You're just happy these ball-less flobberworms didn't have the guts to stand up to you and your goonsquad for all the shit you've pulled the last —" her voice cut off as Malfoy pointed his wand at her.

"Very good," he said to the others assembled around him. "Now that we have Thomas back, we'll be taking her back to Azkaban." He looked at Fred, Ron and George. "I suppose you three can come along as well, to watch her go back in." He pointed to two junior Aurors. "Griffen, you and Blackthorne bring Molly Weasley to HQ, put her in one of the detention cells until I return. And you two," he said to Crabbe and Goyle, "take Auror Tonks back and put her in the most secure cell we have. With any luck, we should arrive at Azkaban just in time to see Harry Potter recaptured."

A dozen or or so Disapparition _cracks_ later the back yard of Burrow stood empty once again.

=ooo=

"For a search and rescue mission," Sirius complained as he, Remus and Harry followed Harry's Patronus through level four of A-section, "this has all been pretty boring. And I'm getting pretty tired of being the pack mule of this group." He hefted the bolt cutters he'd been using to remove the locks from the doors along each section.

"Just be thankful I had those in my pouch," Remus retorted dryly. "And that we haven't had to use them yet." He shrugged. "It could have been a lot trickier, however — if I didn't have the bolt cutters we might've have to use the Universal Solvent Solution I have."

"You have Universal Solvent?" Harry asked, interestedly. They had been walking for several minutes along the A-spiral, following it upwards. So far none of the doors between sections had been locked or secured with a padlock. "Too bad we're going up. But it would have been very useful going down through this place."

"Probably," Remus agreed with a wry smile. "Especially if we wanted a hole below Azkaban reaching several miles deep in the Earth."

Harry shrugged. "That could be Plan B, I guess — weaken the ground beneath it enough to drop it into the Earth's mantle."

"But when it went," Sirius pointed out, "you'd go with it, plus everyone else in the place."

"Just details to be worked out," Harry muttered. He addressed his Patronus walking before them for the tenth time since beginning the walk up. "No sign of Hermione yet?"

"She is still above us," the Patronus answered. "Most likely she is section 2-A — I will know more precisely when we reach that level."

"Then all we have to do is get her out of her cell," Sirius said, hefting the bolt cutters he held, "and in all likelihood fight our way through a dozen or more Aurors. Piece of cake."

"Get that Universal Solvent ready," Harry said to Remus.

"We're not using the Solvent on Azkaban," Remus said.

A short pause.

"Unless we absolutely have to."

Harry smiled grimly. Their fight with half a dozen Aurors in the seventh-floor corridor of Hogwarts had been weird enough. He hoped to get Hermione out, make the walk back down to the lowest level, and get out the way they'd come in. So far their trip had been uneventful — they'd come upon no roving bands of Aurors nor had they heard any loud screaming from the inmates.

Which, come to think of it, was strange.

"Sirius, how often did the Aurors patrol the corridors when you were a prisoner?"

Sirius looked thoughtful for a moment. "I don't know… it didn't seem like they did it very often, maybe to distribute water or our meals."

"Either we arrived between anything like that," Harry mused, "or something is going on. Patronus, have you sensed the presence of anyone in any of these cells since we arrived?"

"No," the Patronus confirmed, "but the deepest level that contained prisoners the last time we were here was level 5, and Ginny was the only prisoner being held on that level. However, I sense no prisoners on this level or level Three of any of the spirals. The prisoners may have been moved after our escape."

"Or before our arrival, perhaps?" Harry hypothesized.

"It is possible," the Patronus agreed. "We should exercise caution."

"That's the understatement of the year," Sirius snorted.

"Can you determine the location of the Aurors here?" Harry asked the Patronus.

"Not without getting close enough to them for their own Patronuses to notice me," the Patronus answered. "If Hermione is in level Two they may notice me anyway. It could be difficult to return the way we came if the Aurors lock down the prison and give chase."

"That Universal Solvent is starting to look like an option," Sirius quipped.

Remus shook his head. "If you're thinking it'll just eat a big hole in all the floors between here and the bottom of Azkaban, it doesn't work that way. It would need to be bound into a circular area as it eats its way through the metal — I don't know how well that will work. And if anyone gets in its way…" Remus just shook his head. "The final problem would be lowering someone almost 800 feet using a Levitation Charm. And there will be four of us, counting Hermione."

"One complication at a time, please," Harry muttered tiredly, rubbing his temples. "I could sure use —" he cut himself off before finishing.

"Use what?" Sirius asked curiously.

"A drink," Harry finished, though that wasn't what he was thinking. He was about say he could sure use James Monroe's help getting Hermione, Sirius, Remus and himself out of here. But Remus had convinced him that seeing Monore had only been some kind of hallucination or delusion. They would have to get out of Azkaban on their own.

"No drinking until we're safely out of here," Remus said with a smile. "No use impairing yourself on top of what we've already got to deal with."

They passed through section Three without incident and made their way toward the entrance of section 2-A.

As they approached the door, however, the Patronus began to dim in intensity, becoming almost silver-gray as he stopped in front of the door leading to the section.

"I sense humans on the other side of the door," it said, speaking softly, "in the main corridor as well as in the cells of this section. Their Patronuses are nearby but not within the section itself, probably to hide their presence from you. I have reduced my output so they will not feel any additional relief from the Dementors."

"I can tell," Sirius muttered in a low voice. "I can feel them."

But Harry shook his head. "I don't. I think you just think you feel them, Sirius."

"Be that as it may," Remus put in. "We are at a stalemate unless we find a way to neutralize them and get Hermione —" he glanced at the Patronus "— I assume one of the people in the next section is Hermione."

"Yes," the Patronus nodded. "And the Weasley brothers Fred and George, and their sister Ginny Thomas as well," it added, surprisingly.

"Well, that tears it," Sirius grumbled resignedly. "If they caught the Weasleys they have to be onto us as well, don't they? What do we do now?"

"I wish you'd stop asking that question," Harry said, irritably. After a moment he looked at the Chief Warlock. "Er — so what _do_ we do, Remus?"

Sirius snorted a laugh but covered his mouth to keep quiet. Harry spared him a momentary glare then looked Remus again, who was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. After several seconds of thinking Remus shrugged and said, "No idea."

Harry palmed his face. "I really don't know, Harry," Remus added apologetically. He turned to the Patronus. "What can you tell us about any Aurors on the other side of this door, if anything?"

"Aurors are positioned in the far two corners of the corridor," the Patronus answered. "But they seem to be near the ceiling, not the floor. I do not sense any magical spells on them other than Disillusionment, so they are probably using broomsticks. They have the advantage of position from which to cast spells, but are vulnerable to an attack that renders their brooms inoperative."

"Broomsticks," Harry repeated. "If we can get ahold of those broomsticks they might be useful to us."

"All eight cells of the middle cellblock are occupied, but four of the cells have Aurors Polyjuiced to look like Hermione, Ginny and the Weasley brothers," the Patronus continued. "The actual prisoners are Disillusioned and Body-Bound so they cannot call or signal for help. And I can sense at least two dozen more Aurors in the control section above us, 1-A."

"They're probably awaiting confirmation that we're here before they deploy more Aurors," Remus surmised. "So the first inkling these guys get that anything is amiss and we're probably going to be inundated by Aurors and Hit Wizards." He turned to Harry. "I suppose trying again another day is not an option?"

"No," Harry said shortly. "We'll never have a better chance than we do right now — they'll always be expecting us from this point on, and security is only going to get tighter. Not to mention the fact that Hermione and three of the Weasleys are imprisoned in here, and I don't think Malfoy will let any of them have a fair trial now. Especially since you're compromised now as well, Remus." Harry looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry for that, it wasn't what I —"

"Don't worry about it," Remus replied gently. "I may have some political tricks I can bring to bear against Malfoy."

"Speaking of tricks," Harry went on, nodding to the mokeskin pouch on Remus's belt. "I think it's time to delve into your bag of tricks and see what we can come up with to free Hermione and the Weasleys."

=ooo=

Nearly fifteen minutes later Harry and the two Marauders had come up with a plan of attack. To keep noise down during their work they each cast a Quietus Charm on themselves; their voices and any noise made by an object they held would not be heard by anyone other than the individual. To communicate, Remus handed out Extendable Ears to each of them; to speak to one another they would grasp the listening end of the Ear and hold it — the other end, in one of their ears, would be able to pick up the sounds they made but no one else could.

The plan wasn't complicated, but what it lack in complexity it more than made up in danger. Remus had taken his bottle of Universal Solvent, two globes of Sunlight Potion, a potion Harry had used during Quirrell's battle games in his first year, three green goggles, and his bottle of Soverign Glue from his pouch.

Now they just had to take out the Aurors guarding the far end of the corridor, neutralize the Aurors pretending to be Hermione and the Weasleys, free the actual prisoners, prevent the Aurors in the control level from coming after them, and get the hell out of here with everybody safe. Like Sirius had said earlier, a piece of cake.

Remus was holding Harry and Sirius's Extendable Ears. "We can assume that, even if the lamps are on in the next section the brightness of the Sunlight globes will be enough to dazzle the Aurors." Each of them were wearing the green goggles that would filter out most of the purple-white light of the globes. "When they break they will spill the light enclosed inside. Harry, you and Remus will Stun them and retrieve their brooms.

"Put them on the other side of the corridor door leading out of 2-A then use this —" he handed Harry the bottle of Sovereign Glue "— on the door to seal it shut. Then come back to the cell block where Hermione and the others are.

"Now here's the part I don't like," Remus admitted. "Sirius, when you get back to the cell block door I'll cancel the Unbreakable Charm on the Universal Solvent. You then throw the bottle, making sure it's far enough away from us that none of it splatters on anyone! That's going to eat a hole in all the floors of the prison, probably down to the Earth's mantle if not further. It will take a little while to get through all the metal floors, which will give us time to do what we're going to do next.

"If the Aurors haven't rushed out of their cells pretending to be the prisoners who've _conveniently_ escaped while we're breaking them out —" Remus smiled ironically "— we can have Harry's Patronus identify who's in each cell. We will seal the Aurors in the cells, release Hermione, Fred, George and Ginny, and use the brooms we've captured to fly down to the bottom level and Portkey out of the central pit, hopefully before the Solvent has reached the mantle and molten rock comes shooting up from the hole it made, providing a distraction for our escape."

Sirius was smiling broadly. "Easy as cake," he said, holding onto Remus and Harry's Ear ends. Harry palmed his face again, while Remus just shook his head.

"Glad you think so," Remus said dryly. "Are you ready?"

"I was born rea —"

"Right," Remus said, cutting Sirius off. He placed the two globes of Sunlight Potion on the floor. "Just be careful not to swallow these things."

"Ready, Harry?" Remus asked. Harry nodded, not bothering with the Extendable Ears.

Sirius dropped to the floor, transforming to his Animagus dog form. He picked up the two globes in hi mouth and positioned himself next to the door. Harry got behind him, smiling at the green goggles Sirius was still wearing, and Remus stepped behind the door, taking hold of the handle.

Remus yanked the door open and both Sirius and Harry charged into the corridor, Harry with his wand at the ready to counter any curses coming from the Disillusioned Aurors. The gas lamps _were_ on in this corridor, which would have alerted them if they'd simply walked in, but they probably would have been Stunned or immobilized before they could mount a defense. Red bolts shot from the upper far corners of the corridor, as expected, and Harry batted them aside.

Sirius had pulled away from Harry, running twice as fast as he could, and as he crossed the midpoint of the corridor he leapt into the air, transforming and spitting out the Sunlight globes, then catching them in either hand. He windmilled his arms, throwing the globes toward the corners of the room. A red bolt shattered one globe, scattering dazzlingly bright purpule-white light in the air; the other globe hit an invisible object and exploded into another mini-sunburst.

There were twin _thuds_ as two bodies hit the floor. Harry sent Stunners into one corner while Sirius targeted the other; after a few shots apiece the unconscious bodies of the Aurors appeared. Harry spared a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure Remus was guarding the cell block where Hermione and the others were.

Running up to the two unconscious men Harry began feeling around on the floor for broomsticks. Following his lead Sirius did the same in the other corner. After several seconds Harry found what felt like a broomstick and cast the counter for the Disillusionment Charm on it. Sirius had already found his and slid the broom along the metal floor toward Remus, then Levitated the unconscious Auror and began moving him toward the section door marked 1-A.

"Come on, Harry," Sirius laughed as he canceled his Quietus spell, seeing Harry was slower than him. "Let's get this show on the road." He pushed open the door.

"Sirius, wait!" Harry hissed. "Did you check the other side for —"

A Stunbolt flashed through the open doorway, slamming into Sirius's chest and knocking him to the ground. Another Stunner, aimed for Harry, was deflected by him as he jumped on the broom he'd just captured and took to the air. It had been a while since he'd been on a broom but it was still very familiar to him. Just below the ceiling he stopped and spun around, pointing his wand at the open door. "_Accio_ door!" he shouted, but the door didn't budge. Another Stunner narrowly missed him and Harry spun again, flying the broom toward where Remus was firing Stunners of his own toward the door.

"Quick, inside!" Harry shouted, slashing his wand at the padlock on the cellblock door. The padlock fell apart and Harry grabbed the handle, yanking the door open to provide a barrier against the curses coming from the other end of the section.

Remus dashed inside the door, and Harry pulled it shut, reaching into his pocket and pulling the bottle of Sovereign Glue. He applied a thin line of the material along the top and on each side of the door.

"What happened?" Remus asked in a low voice.

"They must've been waiting for us," Harry whispered back. "Sirius didn't check the other side of the door!" He looked around wildly. "Where's my Patronus?"

"It vanished while you were fighting the Aurors," Remus said. "I thought you sent it somewhere."

"No. I must've gotten too distracted," Harry groaned. "I've got to get it back —"

Four cell doors flew open and Hermione, Fred, George and Ginny rushed out. Except the weren't really who they were supposed to be — Harry could tell by the wands in their hands.

"Don't move, Potter!" Fred's Polyjuice twin shouted, and both Remus and Harry looked at each other for a bare moment before silently agreeing they were outmatched and raised their hands in the air, giving up. As the Aurors warily approached them, out of the side of his mouth Remus muttered, "Time for Plan B."

Harry started to laugh, but a Stunner from an Auror wand dropped him to the floor and everything went black.

=ooo=

Sometime later Harry, Sirius and Remus found themselves bound and seated in the control section of Azkaban, surrounded by Aurors and, worst of all, being lectured by Minister Malfoy, who was enjoying himself immensely.

"What I cannot believe, Potter," Malfoy was saying, "is that you managed to corrupt the _Chief Warlock_ to your nefarious plans. It was unlikely enough that you got a long-term prisoner like Black to help you, but the Chief Warlock? I am amazed and disappointed with you, Lupin," Malfoy shook his head in mock sadness.

"Maybe if you hadn't kept sending in your supposedly-dead lackey, Peter Pettigrew, to torment me we wouldn't have figured out what you were up to," Harry replied.

Malfoy chuckled. "Pettigrew? Really? The man's been dead for 35 years now, Potter, and you're going to try to resurrect him to make me look bad?" He grinned wolfishly. "Who else do you plan to resurrect? James Monroe perhaps, the man you murdered?"

Harry didn't respond to that, but Sirius spoke up. "We'll find out the truth soon enough at the retrial, when you question me under Veritaserum."

Malfoy's eyebrows shot up. "Why would we have a retrial, exactly? Because the Chief Warlock planned to call for one? The man who aided and abetted you after you escaped from prison? I don't think you should look forward to that trial, Mr. Black — you're going back into a cell. After we've made some modifications to remove the windows that made it easier for you to escape. And after your Animagus form has been neutralized." Sirius paled upon hearing that.

Malfoy looked at Remus. "You, on the other hand, will be given a trial before the Wizengamot, Mr. Lupin, as soon as we've found a Chief Warlock _pro tem_. That may be a little difficult, you understand, since we've never done anything like that before."

"Maybe _you_ should consider the position, Malfoy," Lupin answered tightly. "Since you already hold the positions of Head Auror and Minister of Magic now."

"Perhaps I will," Malfoy said, smilling. He turned to Harry. "And you, Potter. All that running around rescuing Ginny Thomas and sending my men on wild goose chases ended up for naught, didn't it? Now she's back in prison, and her brothers Fred and George are awaiting their own trials, while Ron Weasley will end up missing an arm for the rest of his life."

"Because of _your_ dark spell," Harry snapped. "You should be on trial for _that_, if nothing else!"

"The Monroe Act authorizes Aurors to use dark spells, including the Unforgiveables, if required to in the line of duty," Malfoy pointed out. "And as Mr. Lupin rightly stated, I am still acting in the capacity of Head Auror."

"Good work, everyone," Malfoy turned, addressed the Aurors present. "We're taking Lupin back to the Ministry — I'll want him tried by the Wizengamot as soon as possible. To those on duty here at Azkaban, make sure Black and Potter are locked away as securely as possible. Dismissed!"

As the Aurors dispersed to go about their duties, Malfoy took one of the long-time Azkaban guards by the arm and drew him aside to speak privately. "I'm a little concerned about Potter," he told the man, one of the few he trusted to do his bidding just as Crabbe and Goyle did. "He's been entirely too much trouble these past few days."

The Auror nodded agreement. "I wonder if I should arrange for one of the Dementors to Kiss him?" he suggested.

"Too obvious," Malfoy shook his head. "What about that cell I had you set up? Have you used it on anyone yet?"

"No, sir." The Auror smiled evilly. "I understand. It will look like an accident. If there's an investigation we can blame it on the maintenance — in the worst case a house-elf can be blamed for being negligent."

"Good," Malfoy agreed. "You're about due for a bonus," he smiled.

"I'll take care of it," Auror Lesath Lestrange told him. He nodded slowly. "It will be a pleasure, sir. I've been waiting for a chance to pay Potter back for a long time."

"Really?" Malfoy was mildly interested. "What did he do to you?"

"It's not what he did," Lestrange answered. "It's what he _didn't_ do."

If Malfoy was puzzled by the cryptic response he didn't react. "Carry on," was all he said.

A few quick orders to subordinate Aurors and Harry was suddenly pulled to his feet and led away followed by protests and questions from Remus and Sirius, taken to the C-spiral, section 2-C, and placed in a cell that looked every bit as nice as the holding cells in 2-A. The cot and mattress in the cell was new, and the sink and toilet were both in pristine shape. There were even two gas lamps in the upper corners of the room on either side of the door. The two Aurors pushed him into the cell, one saying "Enjoy your stay, murderer," before spitting on the floor and slamming the door closed.

Harry looked around the room. The windows in the side walls weren't present in this cell, but they hadn't been in the holding cells in 2-A, either. Apparently that had only been done in the regular cells. Harry sat on the bed, bouncing up and down on the mattress. It was not very soft but it was better than sleeping on a bare cot. There was even a blanket and sheets on the bed! That was rather unusual, Harry thought — he would have expected a bare room with nothing in it at all rather than "V.I.P." accomdations like this for him.

Harry wasn't sure how long he sat there before the cell door began to open — he noticed that it lacked a viewing window and a food door, unlike the cell he'd been in before — another unusual difference. An Auror carrying a food tray with a cup and bowl on it stepped into the room. "Figured we'd better feed you," he said gruffly. "You won't be getting fed again until tomorrow — we can't have you being mistreated, can we?" He laughed, setting the tray on the floor and backing out of the room, closing the door which made a strange squelching noise as it sealed shut, reminding Harry of an Inperturbable Charm.

Harry hadn't moved or spoken while the Auror was in the room. He stood, slowly, and walked over to the tray, picking it up and looking at the food in the bowl. Stew again, and lukewarm water to drink. He eyed the food suspiciously; if Malfoy wanted him dead there were any number of poisons he might have added to the food somehow. He walked back to his bed, setting the tray on the small table next to the cot, and began to think about what his next move should be.

There weren't many options, of course.

Not only was he, Sirius and Ginny back in Azkaban for murders they didn't commit, but Malfoy had put Hermione in as well, trying to force Harry to surrender. And Fred, George and Remus were now accused of crimes that would land them in Azkaban as well, assuming they were even tried for those crimes! Harry was wandless again, exhausted, and even though there were only a few Dementors left in the prison, depressed and unable to work up any determination to free himself and the others. He wasn't sure how it could get much worse. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, wondering if he should try to get some sleep before trying to figure out his next move — the room was becoming dimmer, as if he were about to fall asleep sitting up on his cot.

Glancing up at the gas lamps, Harry watched them for several seconds. It wasn't his eyes that were going out — it was the lamps! As he watched they dimmed considerablely then winked out. What was this, lights out for the night?

Then he heard the sound.

It was barely audible, but Harry could hear a soft hissing sound. At first he wondered if they had set a snake loose in the cell, perhaps a poisonous one, but the sound was far too steady and regular to be a live snake. Then he smelled it, too — the smell of gas. The lamps had gone out, but the gas was still on, and it seemed to be building up in the cell. Harry reached beneath his cot, where the small vent hole that pushed air into the room, but he felt air flowing _out_ through the hole, not in.

So that was it. Malfoy was going to kill him by asphyxiation, by replacing the air in the room with gas he couldn't breathe. Harry sighed, defeated. He could pound on the cell door, but what Auror was going to respond to him? "All the things I've been through," he muttered to himself. "And now to die in Azkaban, not from Dementors sucking the life from me or in a firefight with Aurors, but from breathing natural gas…

Harry stared helpless into the dark. Without a wand there was nothing he could do about his predicament except wait for unconsciousness and death to claim him. Maybe if he hadn't lost half of his intelligence he could have come up with something to get himself out of this. As things stood, however, without a miraculous save, somehow, he was doomed.

Harry sighed. "Where's Luke Skywalker when you really need him?"

=ooo=

**A/N: This chapter begins the end of this story. I will release a new chapter each Friday until the conclusion. I hope you enjoyed reading **_**Methods of Chaos**_** and ask that you leave a review, however short, letting me know what you think of these final few chapters. **


	31. For All the Marbles, Part 2

**Chapter Thirty-One  
><strong>**For All the Marbles, Part 2****  
><strong>

_Updated_ 7/19/2013

=ooo=

The soft whisper of escaping gas seemed to fill Harry's ears, distracting him as he sat trying to think of some way to escape the cell he'd been imprisoned in. He had no wand, his intelligence and strength were half of what they used to be, and all of his friends and family were either in Azkaban with him or being held at the Ministry by Aurors. On top of this Draco Malfoy, who'd had him framed and sent to Azkaban in the first place, was really Voldemort — or rather, an entity who was an amalgam of Voldemort, Quirinus Quirrell, a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who'd been possessed by Voldemort and another wizard, David Monroe, who'd fought against Voldemort back in the 1970's. He was Dark Vader to Harry's Luke Skywalker — or perhaps it would be more appropriate to think of him now as the evil opposite of Mentor, the four-ply Airisian entity that helped Kimball Kinnison.

Kinnison, the main protagonist of the Lensman series, was guided by the Arisian Mentor from time to time in his adventures, and was the first Lensman allowed to return to Arisia after visiting there to be fitted for his Lens. Mentor helped Kinnison become a Second-Stage Lensman, able to use his Lens in any way he could conceive of and understand. Voldemort, as the Anti-Mentor, had done the exact opposite with Harry, weakening him mentally and physically until he was practically helpless. And he really had no one to blame but himself. He needed to turn things around, to get back on his feet like Kinnison did whenever he was beaten or outsmarted (which wasn't often) and take on the bad guys once again using the power of his Lens.

Harry had no Lens, of course, but he'd had a wand, once, and that wand was a formidable weapon by itself. It would surely help if he had it now, he thought bitterly, but instead he was slowly dying of axphyxiation in this cell as it filled with gas.

Would the same fate befall his godfather Sirius? And what would happen to Remus Lupin, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, now that Malfoy had charged him with aiding and abetting prisoners of Azkaban in an escape? The Weasleys, Fred and George, would end up in Azkaban as well, along with their sister Ginny Thomas, and younger brother Ron Weasley — Harry winced as he thought of Ron, now missing his left arm after Malfoy cursed it off with Sectumsempra. Harry looked up, trying to see in the complete darkness of the cell, but the sibilant whisper of gas was all that reached his senses. Soon the gas would overpower him, and he would slip into unconsciousness and — death.

It was a frustrating and aggravating thought. Unbidden, Harry's hand found itself pounding against the metal wall of the cell behind his cot. _Doom doom doom, doom-doom-doom, doom-doom-doom_, his fist beat out the rhythem of the Imperial March from Star Wars.

Would Kimball Kinnison let a little thing like gas kill him? Would Luke Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi let themselves be taken out this way? Hell no! Harry stood, determined to find a way out of this deathtrap. He felt his way to the door of the cell, searching for the window that he hoped he could pry open to allow fresh air into the room, to hold off the effects of the gas.

But there was no window in this cell, nor a slot to push food and water through. There were no smaller windows in the side walls like there were in his original cell. This room had evidently been built with one purpose in mind — to kill. Harry walked slowly back to the cot and dropped onto it, not knowing what else he could do. He felt tired and weak; his eyes could barely stay open. He fell over on his side, lying half-on and half-off the bed, trying to catch his breath. It was getting hard to breathe… If he didn't think of something soon… The darkness, all he could see, seemed to envelop him, and his mind slipped into blackness.

=ooo=

The next thing Harry felt was coolness pressing against his back. It was a soothing sensation, even though he thought he must've fallen off the cot onto the floor. There was no sensation of pain, however, nor even of the smothering feeling he'd gotten just before he — before he…

Before he what? Harry opened his eyes. He stared up into, not darkness, but into pure white. It wasn't that his cell was lighted, now, but that there was nothing but whiteness above him. Glancing to the left and right brought nothing else into view; he was surrounded by whiteness.

Harry sat up. He did not even have to push himself upright, his upper body simply bent at the waist until he was in a sitting position. There was whiteness all around him as far as he could see.

And he was naked. That didn't make any sense. Why would someone have taken him from his cell, removed his clothes and placed him here? Wherever _here_ was, he wondered. It would be nice to have some clothes, at least.

He glanced to his side and saw a pullover shirt and jeans lying folded next to him. They hadn't been there a moment before, he was sure of that. On his other side were some socks and trainers. No underwear? But there was a pair of shorts now, on top of the shirt! Bemused, Harry dressed himself (the clothing fit perfectly) then stood, looking around at the whiteness that surrounded him. Where was he, exactly, if no longer in that cell slowly suffocating? This did not make sense — he should be…

He should be dead.

Involuntarily Harry touched his chest. He could feel it, so he must be real; or at least, he amended, as real as he was. The clothes he was now wearing he could feel against his skin. They must be real as him as well. He could feel himself standing on something solid; by induction, that would be real as well. But the whiteness around him, that seemed to extend in all directions as far as he could see, _that_ did not seem real. In the real world it would be just about impossible to find yourself in a place that seemed infinitely huge yet uniformly and unvaryingly white.

"It is an interesting puzzle, is it not?" a familiar voice, one he hadn't heard in many years, asked. Harry turned toward the sound, seeing Albus Dumbledore walking toward him through the whiteness. He was exactly as Harry remembered him: tall, white-haired and white bearded, wearing robes of midnight blue. But his nose was no longer crooked, nor were a pair of half-moon spectacles perched on top of it. Harry reached up to touch his face, discovering he was not wearing glasses either, though his vision seemed perfect.

"Have you divined yet where you are, Harry?" Dumbledore asked him as he stopped a few feet away, smiling genially at him. He appeared hale and healthy, not at all like a man who'd lost a duel with Voldemort, and Harry shook his head, almost afraid to answer the question he'd been asked.

"I don't know where we are, sir," he said at last, not wanting to voice the horrible suspicion that had formed in the back of his mind upon seeing Dumbledore again. "Can — can you tell me?"

Dumbledore nodded, though there was a certain anticipation behind the gesture. "I think you must know, Harry, or at least have guessed."

"That I'm…dead?" Harry said, slowly.

"Or, somewhere in between," Dumbledore amplified. "You never did believe in an afterlife, did you?" Harry shook his head. "So what do you think all of this could mean?"

"That I was wrong?" Harry said, candidly.

"True," Dumbledore conceded. "If you are in fact dead and not merely unconscious."

"Then you're suggesting I'm hallucinating," Harry said, a bit hope returning to his voice. "That I'm still alive but perhaps suffering from oxygen deprivation. That I'm having a near-death experience."

"Possibly," Dumbledore nodded. "You have rejected this place and my presence as indications of the afterlife, the next great adventure to which all humans one day go, then?"

"Possibly," Harry answered in turn, and Dumbledore smiled. "You know I reject death itself, which you always seemed to embrace."

"I never sought to hasten the day of my death," Dumbledore reminded him. "But neither did I live in fear of death, nor would I refuse it when it came for me."

"Well, I would," Harry said simply. "As I've said, death is bad. Extremely, awfully, unconsciounably bad. Not wanting to die is not a bad thing. I in fact think it's a _good_ thing, because I don't think that what I'm experiencing now is anything more than my own brain rebelling against its imminent demise. And if there's a way out of dying _now_, I want to find it and put off death to another day."

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully. "I quite agree with you in this case, Harry. You should live. There are a great many things still left for you to accomplish — many more, in fact, than you expect.

"And yet your predicament is a grave one, with no successful outcome foreseeable. Do you have any idea how you will extricate yourself from the situation you find yourself in, back in your cell?"

"Not really," Harry finally admitted, after several seconds of silent consideration. He was beginning to feel fuzzy, disjointed; Dumbledore and the surrounding whiteness were becoming more and more indistinct. "I…have a feeling time is running out…for…me…" his vision began to gray out.

"Ah, well," Dumbledore's voice was saying. "I suppose we should do something about that." Harry felt the old wizard's hand on his shoulder.

He looked up. He was back in the prison cell of Azkaban, but the cell was no longer pitch black — a glow of orange light dimly illuminated the cell. The gas lamps in the corners of the cells were burning once again. There was still a hand on his shoulder, and Harry's eyes focused on the man who crouched in front of him.

It was James Monroe.

=ooo=

"Welcome back," Monroe said, letting go of Harry's shoulder.

Harry pushed himself away from Monroe until his back hit the wall of the cell behind him. It wasn't that he was _afraid_ of Monroe, but his sudden reappearance, after he'd convinced himself that what he'd seen earlier was a hallucination itself, did not bode well for his mental state now. Was he hallucinating _still_? Had the images of Dumbledore and the formless white they had talked in merely segued into another image, this time of the cell he would very likely die in? "Are you real?" he asked the image before him impulsively.

"As real as you are," Monroe said, standing up then sitting down beside Harry on the cot. He had a small but definite smirk on his face. "I take it you don't quite believe in me yet."

"Should we really be talking about that right now?" Harry asked plaintively, "when there are more pressing issues? Like my imminent death, for example? If you're here to help me figure out how to get out of this cell, let's get to it. Otherwise, get the hell out of my face."

"You're already safe," Monroe said, pointing to the gas flames in the corners in front of them. "The gas has been removed and the lamps relit. The gas you breathed in has been removed from your body. You're exactly as you were when you entered this room a half-hour ago."

"How?"

Monroe gave a little shrug as he said, "Well, magic, of course. How do you think I got into Azkaban and found your cell?"

"Past all the Aurors and Dementors out there?"

"That's not too difficult when you know how," Monroe reminded him. "You did a pretty good job of it yourself, earlier. Neither the Aurors nor the few Dementors left in this place realize I'm here with you."

"And what happens when they come to check on my body?" Harry wanted to know. "I can guess — they'll Stun both of us, put you in your own cell, shut the door, and turn on the gas again. And _this_ time I die in my sleep."

"You'll be gone by the time they come to check on you," Monroe said confidently. "Barring unforeseen circumstances, nobody's going to bother us before it's time for your first meal tomorrow; that would be normal procedure, and Malfoy wants everything to look normal when they find your dead body. That way it will look like some tragic accident."

"A rather _suspicious_ tragic accident," Harry muttered.

"True, but Malfoy will convince or bully the Wizengamot into accepting it as such. He could even make a scapegoat of an Auror with a personal vendetta against you."

Harry frowned. "A personal vendetta? I don't know of any Auror who _personally_ hates me."

"Lesath Lestrange," Monroe said. "He's never forgiven you for not saving his mother Bellatrix Black or his father from Azkaban."

"But Bellatrix escaped from Azkaban!" Harry protested. "And —" Harry stopped himself from saying anything else. It was a heavy irony that Lesath would never know of his role in —

"And you helped Bellatrix Black escape," Monroe finished. Harry stared at him in shock. "Yes, I was aware of that."

"Er —" Harry didn't want to say this, but. "Actually, that's just further proof that I'm hallucinating you, since I've never told _anyone_ about that, not even Hermione."

"That doesn't mean I couldn't possibly know," Monroe pointed out.

_Well, he had a point there_. "So how are we getting out of here?" Harry asked, sidestepping the Bellatrix Black issue for now. "So are you going to snap your fingers and whisk us magically away to freedom?"

Monroe grinned. "Snapping your fingers was your schtick, Harry," he laughed. "I won't impinge on your perogatives."

"What, then?"

Monroe reached into a pocket and pulled out a wand, handing it to Harry. Harry examined it with growing wonder. It was made from holly, and was eleven inches long. He gave it a shake and red and gold sparks flew from the tip. "My wand?" Harry asked, holding it up. "How —?"

"I knew you'd need it," Monroe replied. "Especially if you're going to take on Voldemort."

Harry looked up from his wand. "If you're real," he said, "I'd think you'd be looking forward to taking him on. How did you manage to avoid being killed?" An unpleasant thought suddenly occurred to him. "Or maybe _you_ have a —" he didn't complete the sentence.

"No, I don't have a Horcrux, Harry," Monroe said softly. "It's a little more complicated than that."

Several moments passed in silence.

"Care to explain?" Harry finally asked.

"Not right now," Monroe shook his head. "But I will, eventually. For now, it's your call what we do next. You're the one with some unfinished business to take care of."

Harry nodded agreement. A lot of people who were close to him were in serious trouble now because of his actions — he would have to make sure they were cleared of any wrongdoing. That included his godfather, Sirius Black, who'd spent 35 years in Azkaban for a murder that never took place. To do all that he would have to expose Minister Malfoy as Voldemort, and make sure he couldn't hurt anyone ever again. But to do that, he had to make sure his remaining Horcruxes were destroyed. And given that one Horcrux was over 95 astronomical units from Earth, that was going to take some doing!

"I have a _lot_ of unfinished business to take care of," Harry said. "But I'm not sure where to start."

"Yeah, that unfortunate business with the memory ritual and counter-ritual," Monroe nodded. "Maybe we should take care of that right now."

"Er —" _Take care of that_? "What do you mean?" Harry asked him. "Those were permanent sacrifices — I can't get back my intelligence or my strength!"

"Don't sound so surprised, Harry," Monroe said, with a smile. "Anything magic can do, it can undo — if you know how." He stood and turned, facing Harry, then reached into a pocket and pulled out a wand, pointing it toward Harry. "_Ke'deer ches'kah nodu aulia'doh_!"

Harry felt his entire body wrench and go limp, like a rag doll. He slumped over on his side once again. The sensation passed and a moment later he sat back up, feeling a lot better.

And smarter. "That spell," he said, thinking hard. "I don't think I've ever heard anyone use language like that, not even Dumbledore. What was it?"

"It was the original language of the beings who created magic," Monroe gave surprising answer. "I suppose I should tell you about that too, sometime, since it has to do with the Source of Magic. But for now, why don't you decide which of your problems we should tackle first?"

"All right, but I'm going to hold you to that." Harry thought for a moment. "There's one problem that's big enough that if we don't solve it, none of the other problems will even matter. Voldemort has two Horcruxes left. One of them is his wand, so the next time we find him, we'll find it as well.

"But the last Horcrux is the gold plaque that's attached to Pioneer 11, and it's billions of miles from Earth," Harry finished with a frustrated sigh. "No magic I know of can reach that far."

Monroe turned and sat down on the cot next to Harry. "That _will_ be a challenge," he said, sighing as well. "Any ideas on what we might try?"

Harry gave him an ironic look. "I do, actually, given that you just used a spell I'd never heard before to restore my intelligence and strength, both of which should have been impossible with all the magic currently known to wizard-kind. That means that you probably have access to hitherto unknown, powerful magics, magics that may have helped you survive Voldemort's Killing Curse."

Monroe smiled indulgently. "No, he hit me with the curse before I knew what the Source of Magic was, but that didn't really matter. I had something better anyway."

"Such as what?" Harry wanted to know.

"Well, it's kind of like the Matrix, you know," Monroe said lightly. "Nobody can _tell_ you what the Source of Magic is, you have to see it for yourself."

"So show me," Harry said flatly, not making it a request.

Monroe nodded. "I will, at the proper time," he said, staring at the door. "But right now we're about to have company."

Harry cast his eyes toward the door. He'd heard nothing — what had Monroe sensed that he'd missed? "Aurors?" he whispered.

"No, the King of England," Monroe retorted. "Duh — of _course_ Aurors."

Harry ignored the jibe and drew his wand. "They'll be bottlenecked by the doorway," he said. "That'll give us an advantage in fighting them."

"Until they throw a Stun-Bomb or something even worse into the room," Monroe muttered, getting his own wand out. "No use letting that happen." He waved his wand at the door, saying "_Qe'vesht at'la noorsh vedanck_!"

The air in front of the door seemed to solidfy. In moments it had become a plate of two-inch thick steel, sealing the room shut. There was a muffled explosion and shouting on the other side of the door, followed by several more explosions that had no effect on the steel plate.

"That should hold them for a minute or so," Monroe said with satisfaction.

"Nice," Harry said, but his tone was laced with sarcasm. "Now we're sealed in!"

"We weren't leaving in that direction anyway," Monroe said, pointing his wand at a cell wall. A large hole appeared in the wall, large enough for two ment to step through, and Harry saw it led to the central core of Azkaban, where the Dementors lived.

"What did you do?" Harry asked, looking at the hole. The edges were clean and smooth. "Did you Transfigure part of the wall into gas?" Harry didn't want to find himself breathing in transfigured metal!

"No, I just Vanished that part of the wall," Monroe said. "Partial Vanishment, just like Partial Transfiguration, is a skill most wizards don't possess." Harry had to agree with that — he himself had never heard of it until now!

Monroe and Harry stepped up to the hole, orienting themselves. The top edge of the shaft was only 40 or 50 feet above them. Just off to one side a heavy rope dangled. Two zip-line handles were attached to the rope. "Grab the top one," Monroe said to Harry. "They'll take us to the top of the building."

"How did you arrange this?" Harry asked, taking hold of the top zip-line handle. "How could you know where they were holding me?"

"Magic," Monroe said again, smiling, as the zip-line handle suddenly shot upward, carrying Harry to the top of the building. He jumped from the zip-line to the building's top and stood waiting for Monroe, who appeared a few seconds later.

"Alright, so we're at the top of the building," Harry said, wondering what could happen next. It was unlikely that any type of magical transportation would work here; the Aurors kept enchantments on this part of the prison active at all times, extending out over most of the island. "Now what? We can't Apparate, Portkey or use broomsticks or a phoenix to get out of here; the enchantments won't let us."

"We're taking that," Monroe said, pointing at an object sitting about 50 feet away.

Harry turned and flinched in spite of their predicament. "Oh, shit," he said, shaking his head. "You've got to be kidding."

"I'm not," Monroe said. He walked toward the object and Harry followed, shaking his head doubtfully. He'd read about these things but had never been interested enough to check them out in any detail. It was a two-person ultralight airplane, and it looked as dangerous as hell. The wings and rudder were almost the same as a real plane, but the body was nothing but tubing fitted with what reminded Harry of a lawnmower engine mounted on the top of the craft in a pusher configuration. On either side of the two seats were two long metal tubes positioned at about chest level. It wasn't immediately obvious what they were, but Harry had a sneaking (and somewhat alarming) suspicion about them. "Pretty neat, eh?" Monroe grinned at him. "No Anti-Anti-Gravity Jinx can keep this thing out of the air."

"The big question," Harry muttered, "is whether it can _get_ into the air?"

"Sure," Monroe said, pointing down the length of the roof they were standing on, several hundred feet of of metal landing strip 60 feet wide. "I flew it here, no problem."

"Fine," Harry said. Though he still had reservations, now wasn't the time to be timid about things like this. He'd already broke out of Azkaban once using something similar, though it had been an amalgam of magic and Muggle technology that had probably come within a hair's-breadth of killing him and everyone who was with him, not to mention several Aurors who were trying to prevent his escape. "Let's get going before the Aurors realize where we are and come after us."

=ooo=

Auror Lesath Lestrange sat in one of the duty chairs in the control section of Azkaban and contemplated his victory over Potter. It had taken 25 years, but with the Boy-Who-Lived finally dead at his hand, he was content.

_Almost_ content.

He still wanted to see the body, wanted to stand over Potter's lifeless remains and silently remind him of his failure to help his father and mother escape from Akaban when it would have been so easy for him given the amazing things he was able to do just by snapping his fingers.

(Oh, Lesath was well aware by now that Harry could not really do anything just by snapping his fingers. Harry had even told him so, but at the time Lesath's 11-year old mind had refused to accept that as truth. Years later, Lesath had finally undersood that, but his hatred for Potter had become so ingrained that he desired revenge just because Harry Potter had dared to make himself seem better than anyone else at school — better than Slytherin, better than their Head of House, Severus Snape, even better than his own Head of House or the Headmaster of the School! Such arrogance demanded retribution.)

Lestrange stood, walking slowly back and forth in front of his duty chair while his Patronus, a shining silver gecko, maintained its vigil between Lesath and the window overlooking the central core of the prison. He wanted have a peek inside the cell, but another trio of Aurors were on patrol duty, and they would ask questions if he ran into them on his way to gloat over Potter's dead body.

"What's up?" asked Lestrange's junior partner, Wilhelm Janssen, as he watched Lestrange pacing back and forth.

"Nothing," Lestrange said curtly. Then he stopped and looked at Janssen. "Sorry," he said quietly. "Just trying to remember if I left some food and water for the newest prisoner tonight."

"Who d'you mean?" Janssen asked. "Potter, the one that was just recaptured?" Lestrange nodded.

Janssen raised an eyebrow. "Seems like you'd remember feeding him, Lestrange."

"Maybe," Lestrange shrugged. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a mirror. "Maybe I'll ask the guys on patrol if they'll check for me."

Janssen was grinning. "Why? Did you take a bribe from Potter or something?"

The question infuriated Lesath but he carefully avoided reacting. "Ha-ha," he said, dryly, moving away from Janssen so he could speak to the patrol team. "Lestrange to Alpha team," he spoke into the mirror. "Where are you guys?"

"It was several seconds before anyone replied. "Just leaving 1-C," the voice replied. "What's up? Is there a problem, Lestrange?"

"Is that you, Whorley?" Lesath had recognized the man's voice, he knew who he was speaking to, but he wanted to make sure. He and James Whorley had a decent working relationship and he was about to leverage on that.

"Of course it's me," Worley said, a bit confused by the question. "What do you want, Lesath?"

"I need a favor," Lesath said. "I want you to check and see if I left Potter any food or water."

A moment of silence. "We're not supposed to check on him until tomorrow, he's in solitary the rest of the night, Lesath. Come on, you know that."

"I know that, but I can't remember if I left him anything to eat or drink," Lesath continued. _Come on, just do it_.

"Fine," Whorley's voice finally said. "But I'm going to note this in my patrol report. Are you sure you want me to do that?"

"Oh come on, Jimmy," Lesath said in an aggrieved tone. "It'll only take a second."

Whorley sighed. "Okay, whatever. We're at in 2-C, hang on — I'll take Block Three, guys," he spoke to the Aurors with him. Lesath heard him open the cell block door and walk down to the last cell in the block, where Potter was being held in that "special" cell. Any second now, Lestrange thought, he would find Potter dead —

"What the hell?" Whorley suddenly said. "Can you hear that?" The image in his mirror suddenly swung around to point at the cell door.

"I can't hear anything?" Lesath said, suddenly anxious. "What's going on?"

The image swung back to Whorley's mouth. He was holding the mirror very close. "I hear voices inside Potter's cell! Someone's in there with him!"

"Get the others!" Lesath said immediately. "Open that cell and stun everyone inside!" Whorley shouted for his team mates and Lesath heard the pounding of their footsteps.

"The door won't open!" another voice, Auror Andrews, shouted.

"Blast it open!" Lestrange screamed into the mirror.

Another Auror in the in the control room, Evans, spoke. "That might harm the prisoners —"

"Who gives a fuck?!" Lestrange yelled. "Blast it!"

There was several seconds of silence, then a loud explosion that was felt a moment later in the control room as the floor and other items in the room reverberated.

"What the hell is _that_?" Lestrange heard Whorley shout.

"What is it!" he yelled into the mirror. "Tell me! Is Potter dead?"

"Can't tell — there's a bloody steel plate across the doorway!" Whorley said, his voice tense and confused. "Where the hell would they get _that_?"

"Blow it, too!" Lestrange shouted again. "It's probably Transfigured or Conjured." If someone had let a prisoner get access to a wand heads were going to roll!

There were several explosions — Lestrange could see the flashes of light in his mirror. "They can't get through!" Whorley was saying. "That has to be true-forged steel!"

"Ridiculous!" another Auror's voice shouted. "We don't keep steel plates that size here! It had to be brought in by someone, somehow!"

"Keep trying to get through!" another voice said. "Potter may be stalling us while he does something in that cell to —"

Without waiting for authorization from the Duty Officer Lestrange bolted toward the control section exit, heading topside. He grabbed a broom out of the broom locker. "Potter's getting away!" he screamed, bringing other Aurors running after him. The hastily-formed team pelted up the steps to the main exit and piled onto the roof of the prison.

"Look over there!" an Auror shouted, pointing to an adjacent part of the roof where two men were clambering into a strange-looking device that vaguely resembled a toy aeroplane. A terrible buzzing was heard over the blowing wind and the men and the device began rolling along the roof away from the Aurors.

"_After them_!" Lestat screamed, and spoke the password that would let the broom fly even in an airspace protected by the Anti-Anti-Gravity Jinx. He kicked a leg over the broom and took off into the air after them. The other Aurors quickly followed suit, and soon there were a half-dozen Aurors in the air bearing down on the men in the device, which seemed to be gaining altitude despite the AAG Jinx.

=ooo=

The ultralight was just lifting off when Harry and Monroe heards shouting coming from the opposite corner of the roof. "That was fast," Monroe remarked, angling the small plane away from the group of Aurors flying toward them. "They're already after us."

Harry was looking back at the Aurors. "The Ministry doesn't skimp on security at Azkaban. Those Aurors will be using Firebolt Mark IVs — they can fly at 180 MPH. What's the top speed of this thing?"

"About 150 in its original configuration," Monroe replied.

"Then we're in trouble," Harry said, taking out his wand. "If we can't outrun them, we'll have to fight them."

"Oh, I didn't say we couldn't go faster," Monroe said with a grin. He pointed to the metal tubes on either side of the ultralight's frame. "Solid fuel rockets. They'll boost our speed to about 200 MPH — we should easily be able to outrun the Aurors past the protection spells. Then I have a Portkey that will take us to the northern coast of Britain."

Harry looked around the plane. "It looks like outrunning the Aurors isn't an option anymore." In the few seconds Monroe had been speaking, the group of Aurors pursuing them had caught up and were surrounding the aircraft, all wands pointed in their direction. "RETURN TO THE PRISON AND GIVE YOURSELF UP!" One of the Auror's amplified voice shouted at him. "OR WE WILL CURSE YOU OUT OF THE SKY!"

"Hang on," Monroe muttered to Harry, then put the plane into a dive. The Aurors quickly angled their brooms downward to follow, but Monroe hit a button that activated the solid-fuel rockets. With a deafening roar twin jets burst from the back of the steel tubes and the ultralight began to accelerate downward and away from the Aurors.

Harry watched as the ground began coming up toward them. "I hope you aren't planning to hit the ground!" he shouted at Monroe, but even as he spoke the plane began leveling out of its dive, leaving the formation of brooms behind. The aircraft was vibrating madly as they accelerated somewhere past 200 MPH. Curses began flying past them as the Aurors opened fire, but Harry erected a Heavy Shield Charm for both him and Monroe and watched as the brooms were left behind.

=ooo=

"Merlin's balls," one Auror said as the ultralight disappeared in the distance. "At that speed we'll never catch them!"

Lesath was griting his teeth in anger. "Return to the prison!" he shouted. "We have to inform Minister Malfoy that Potter has escaped again!" The six brooms wheeled about tightly, heading back toward Azkaban.

It was not going to be easy explaining this to Malfoy, Lesath knew. He had failed the Minister and that meant he was almost certainly going to be punished. Probably not physical punishment, though — Malfoy's punishments were always subtle, and mostly quite ruinous for the person involved. He would have to prepare himself for that. Perhaps if he pledged his service to House Malfoy until he had canceled out the debt he'd incurred today, he could escape the worst of his possible punishments…

=ooo=

The rocket boosters exhausted themselves, and the plane began decelerating back to its normal top speed. They were now over open water, out beyond the protection spells, and Monroe held up a small screwdriver. "It's a Portkey," he explained, when Harry looked at it curiously. "It'll take us somewhere in the Scottish Highlands three seconds after the two of us touch it."

"What about the aircraft?" Harry wondered. "What's it going to do, fly on autopilot or something?"

"No, it'll just crash into the North Sea," Monroe said. "I never intended to keep it, anyway, in case one of the Aurors managed to put a tracing spell on it."

"What if they put one on one of _us_?" Harry asked.

"It would have to be on you," Monroe said. "They never even knew I was there until they saw us escaping. But I didn't detect a trace spell on you when I found you." He wiggled the screwdriver. "They're going to catch up to us in a minute or so. We better vamoose."

Harry nodded agreement and touched the screwdriver. A few seconds later the familiar hook-behind -the-navel sensation grabbed him and he was spinning in a whirlwind of colors, landing moments later, finding himself and Monroe in a snow-covered valley surrounded by high hills.

"Brrr," Harry said, casting a Warming Charm on himself. "Ah, that's better." He looked around at the snow-covered brush and trees surrounding them. They were somewhere in the Highlands, Monroe said; that meant there were probably few people around, wizard or Muggle, that were likely to disturb them.

"Alright," Harry said, turning to face Monroe. "Time for some explanations."

"We still have things to do, Harry," Monroe reminded him. "Have you thought of a way to get that plaque off the Pioneer probe you told me about earlier?"

"No, and that's why I need more information," Harry declared. "You mentioned the original language of the creators of magic and that it had something to do with the Source of Magic. I need to know about that now and if it can help us get access to the Pioneer spacecraft. If it can't then there's nothing we can do about that Horcrux and Voldemort will remain immortal forever."

"Perhaps not forever," Monroe said. "But certainly for a very long time. At some point the Pioneer would move past some arbitrary distance where the Source of Magic would no longer interface with it, and then Voldemort would likely become mortal again, assuming his other Horcruxes had been destroyed."

"So explain what this Source of Magic is supposed to be," Harry said. "How did you find out about it, and exactly what it is and how it gives wizards their magic.

"Alright," Monroe said. Two recliners appeared out of thin air and he sat down in one. A moment later Harry sat down in the other one. "I suppose the first thing I should say about magic is that Clark's Third Law is in effect."

Harry sat back in his chair, considering that statement. "You're suggesting that magic is actually advanced technology," he commented.

"Yes, exactly," Monroe nodded. "I said I planned to tell you about this when we got out of Azkaban, and we're near one of the Sources of Magic right now. It's buried about a mile below us."

"Okay," Harry said, more patiently than he felt. "But what _is_ it, exactly?"

"I can show you what it looks like," Monroe said, and an object appeared in the air between them. It was a dodecahedron with a white, crystalline appearance. "It doesn't look like much, but there are several thousand of these scattered around the entire planet, monitoring what every wizard on Earth is saying and thinking, putting their intentions and desire into action with 'magic,' which is really quite sophisticated technology."

"How did you find all this out?" Harry asked, staring at the dodecahedron floating in front of him. "And when? I never heard about _any_ of this before Voldemort made his play against us, but you _must_ have known about it then if you were able to survive the Killing Curse."

"It's more complicated than that," Monroe averred.

"I'm pretty sure I can understand whatever you can tell me," Harry retorted.

"I don't doubt it," Monroe said quietly. "But you're probably going to be shocked by it."

"Try me," Harry suggested.

"Okay. First off, I'm not really a wizard."

Harry put his hands on either side of his face, his mouth and eyes widened into three O's of mock surprise. "I'm shocked," he said sarcastically. "But then, you've been flipping between Muggle and wizard ever since I've known you. I suppose the next thing you're going to tell me is that you're an Atlantean."

Monroe chuckled. "Touché," he said. "But no, I'm not an Atlantean."

Harry leaned forward. "If you're not a wizard, then what are you? How are you able to perform magic like a wizard?"

"I was able to hack into the technology of the Source of Magic," Monroe said.

"How?"

"It would take too long to go through the entire story," Monroe demurred. "But it should suffice to say for now that I suspected a technological explanation for magic in the first place, and was able to figure out how the crystals were interfacing with wizards' minds. Once I could intercept those signals and analyze them I was able to figure out the codes and commands needed to control them."

Harry shook his head doubtfully in spite of his excitement at this news. "I've been trying to figure out where magic came from since I was eleven years old, Monroe. This is great news, but I wonder how you could have done it in just a month. Or did you know all this before Voldemort 'killed' you?"

"I knew something," Monroe admitted. "I was working on this independently of my discussions with you."

"Why keep it from me?" Harry wanted to know.

"I was on the verge of telling you what I'd figured out," Monroe answered. "Then we got into the Room of Requirement and talked with the Founder statues, and that was opening up another piece of the puzzle! With the Interdict broken and access to the Source crystals, we were about to crack the secrets of magic wide open!"

"How did you escape being murdered by Voldemort?" Harry asked.

"I didn't exactly escape," Monroe said. "I didn't know how to override his command to kill me, and if I dodged the Killing Curse it could just keep traveling until it hit someone else, so I took a chance and commanded the crystal I was communicating with the upload my mind."

"Into the _crystal_?" There was shock in Harry's voice.

Monroe nodded. "That's where I've been for the past month," he said. "Inside the crystal, learning from it. I've learned the command language of those who created the crystals in the first place. They weren't made in Atlantis, though the Atlanteans were the first to understand what the crystals could do for them."

"Where did they come from, if not from Atlantis?"

"From the future," Monroe said.

=ooo=

"Ah," Harry said, understanding. "So time travel was involved."

"Yes. About eleven or twelve thousand years ago several thousand Source crystals were placed within the Earth by visitors from the future, as an experiment that would divide humans into two types: those with 'magic powers' and those who had only their native intelligence. They keyed the use of this 'magic,' this advanced technology, to a particular locus in the human genome. One allele of that locus makes you a witch or wizard, two others make you a Squib. If you have the fourth allele you're just a Muggle."

Harry nodded; so far, except for the revelation about Source crystals, this was ground he had covered long ago. "What did you find out about these 'future-nauts'?"

"They didn't put any information about themselves in the crystals," Monroe said. "I've just surmised all of this from the way the crystals were programmed."

"You figured all that out in just a month?"

"Just a month of objective time," Monroe replied. "Inside the crystal your mind can work at electronic speeds, millions of times faster than the human brain. Inside there 30 days was like 16,000 years of subjective time."

Sixteen thousand _years_? That was longer than recorded human history! "After all that time, why come back into the real world _now_?"

Monroe shrugged. "Curiosity, I suppose. I've been watching you in Azkaban and the goings-on with you and Malfoy-Voldemort."

"So that _was_ you in the corridor outside the Room of Requirement?"

"Yes. I couldn't let Malfoy and his minions kill your friend Remus. I intervened in a way that only you could perceive; I hoped you'd be able to extricate yourself from any further confrontations without my help. You were doing pretty well until they locked you in that cell with the gas trap."

"And then you decided to intervene again," Harry said, dryly.

"Of course. It was never my intention to let you die, Harry."

"Why not?"

"Excuse me?" Monroe looked nonplussed at the question.

"It just seems to me," Harry said, rather cynically, "that after sixteen thousand years as an upload in a magic crystal you would have very little in common with human beings by then. Why would you even care what happened to me, or Remus, or anyone else by then?"

"Well, let's save that for a while," Monroe suggested. "We still have some problems to solve, some people to save, and a Dark Lord to defeat."

"Right," Harry said, a little doubtfully. Most of his skepticism had come back along with his intelligence. But he could play along with this farce until he'd figured out Monroe's game or the man explained what he really wanted. "We still have the problem of how to get a plaque that's on a spacecraft that 95 A.U. from Earth at the top of our list. What you've been telling me about yourself, you're an uploaded human intelligence that has access to vast technological power. My question now is, can you prove it? Do you think, for example, that your super-magic Source crystals can get it back to Earth for us?"

Monroe nodded confidently. "I'm sure they can."

"How?" Harry demanded.

"By creating a wormhole and making the space the Pioneer is occupying and—" Monroe pointed to a spot nearby "— the space over there equivalent." A moment later there was a _pop_ and Pioneer 11 was there, lying on the ground next to them. Harry stared at it, openmouthed, for several seconds before turning back to Monroe. Then the skeptic kicked in again.

"How can I be sure this is the real Pioneer?" he asked, standing and walking up to it. It was taller than him, and as he reached for it he feel cold radiating from the metal.

"Don't touch it," Monroe warned. "It's colder than liquid nitrogen right now. Give it a few minutes to warm up."

"That doesn't prove it's the real Pioneer, though."

"You have spells that can detect Horcruxes," Monroe reminded him, pointing to the plaque.

Without a word Harry took out his wand and pointed it at the gold plaque attached to the probe. The probe flashed blue briefly. But it was several seconds before Harry turned back to Monroe.

"That doesn't prove it's _Voldemort's_ Horcrux, though," he said, stubbornly.

Monroe laughed. "This skepticism of yours is going a bit far, Harry," he said, still chuckling. "Maybe I need to do something you can actually see and experience for yourself."

Pioneer and the valley suddenly vanished, replaced with darkness. Harry looked around a moment, then raised his wand and said, "_Lumos_." When his wand lit, he found himself in a holding cell in Azkaban staring at a very surprised Hermione.

"Harry!" she exclaimed. "What in the world —?"

Harry put up a hand hurriedly to silence her. He looked around. Monroe was no longer with him. "Harry," Hermione went on, her voice now just above a whisper. "How did you get in here? I thought they had you locked up — an Auror told me you were brought in a while ago!"

"Um," Harry said, momentarily at a loss. "I'm not sure I can tell you how I got here, but —"

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Hermione demanded. "How can you not know how you got here?"

"It was — it was Monroe."

Hermione's expression became concerned. "Harry, he's dead, isn't he? How can you say something like that — you know it makes no sense."

"I know, but it's true. He managed to avoid the Killing Curse, somehow — he won't tell me how he did it, but he _did do it_."

"Alright, if you say so," Hermione said slowly, and Harry knew she was humoring him. Monroe's voice suddenly spoke in his mind. _She doesn't believe you, Harry, but I'm not going to reveal myself to anyone else. Just promise you'll have her out of here before the end of today and we can continue our conversation back in Scotland._

"Listen," Harry said quickly. "Never mind about Monroe, it's you and the others I'm worried about. I'll get you out of here later today; just sit tight and wait for it to happen."

"But how did you get in —?" Hermione began.

"Not important right now," Harry interrupted. He put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm real — you're not succumbing to hallucinations, so don't start thinking that way. I'll be back for you, I promise."

"But —" but before Hermione could finish speaking Harry found himself back in Scotland with Monroe.

"I should have taken her out of there," Harry said bitterly to Monroe. "She shouldn't be in there for even a second longer than necessary."

"I agree," Monroe said, "but we still have to deal with the Horcrux. Or are you still skeptical about it?"

Harry shrugged. "Our real problem is how to get rid of it. Only a very few things can destroy a Horcrux: Basilisk venom. Fiendfyre. And perhaps the Killing Curse itself, if the Horcrux is an animate object like an animal or another human, but that was only been a guess on Dumbledore's part."

"Which one do you want to try first?"

Harry cocked his head in bemusement as he stared at Monroe. What an odd question. "I have no doubt you could produce Fiendfyre, Monroe, but _where_ would you get Basilisk venom on demand?"

"I might not be able to," Monroe admitted, "but I was curious which way you'd want to try first. Why don't we just have a go with the Fiendfyre?"

"Er — okay," Harry said, though he was not altogether convinced this was the best course. "But we can't just shoot the probe with Fiendfyre, not out here in this open field. That's way too dangerous!"

"No, of course not," Monroe agreed. "We'll do this safely. I'll remove the plaque from the probe and we can deal with it separately." He went over to Pioneer and returned a few minutes later with the plaque, a thin, nine by six inch plate of gold-anodized aluminum. "Our best bet is to do this as far away from other objects as possible." Monroe reached into a pouch on his hip that Harry hadn't seen before and pulled out a broom — a Firebolt Mark III. "Think you can fly one of these?" he asked, with a grin.

Harry smiled as well. "Better than that ultralight, thank you very much! What's your plan, then?" He caught the broom as Monroe tossed it to him.

Monroe was pulling another broom from the pouch. "I figured we'd go up about a thousand feet or so, well away from the ground, and I'd Hover this plaque a few hundred feet away while you hit it with Fiendfyre. Then I'm going to Banish it upward as far and as fast as I can. I should be able to get it to reach escape velocity. Once it's out in space without material to consume, the Fiendfyre should burn itself out. And that's one Horcrux down." Monroe studied Harry's expression for a moment. "Or do you want me to cast the spell?"

"I can handle it," Harry said flatly. Not that he was happy about it — Fiendfyre was a tricky, dangerous spell that could turn on you in a second if you weren't careful using it. He straddled the broom he'd been given. "Let's do it."


	32. For All the Marbles, Part 3

**Chapter Thirty-Two  
><strong>**For All the Marbles, Part 3****  
><strong>

_Updated_ 7/26/2013

**~ooo~**

**A/N: This is the final chapter of Methods of Chaos. Some of the last few chapters have been Debbie-Downers for most of the main characters, but for those of you who hung tough and slogged through it with Hard-Luck Harry and his crew, I hope you find the ending palatable. Many thanks to Less Wrong aka Eliezer Yudkowsky for the excellent original fan fiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which is up to Chapter 96 as I write this, with more chapters to come there. Whether by coincidence or not, I've appreciated some of the touches he's added to HPMOR that I've been able to incorporate here, such as the inclusion of David Monroe in his storyline. I thought killing Hermione was a real kick in the head, but I've killed her in several of my fan fictions, only to bring her back later; I have no doubt that he will do the same (okay, I really really hope he will). And now, on to the story! (By the way, I think this is the 2nd-longest chapter I've ever written, over 19,000 words.)**

**~ooo~**

Draco Malfoy stared stonily at his two — well, what should he call them? Henchmen? Stooges? Minions? In any case, Aurors Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle watched the Minister and Head Auror carefully for any sign of anger. They were normally safe from any type of retribution on their boss's part when they brought him bad news, but this news was _especially_ bad.

Harry Potter had escaped from Azkaban _again_.

Malfoy glanced down at the report in his hand. Potter had been placed in cell 8 in Block Three of Section 2-C — that was the special cell he'd had his man at the prison, Lesath Lestrange, prepare in case any prisoner needed to "accidentally" perish while in the Ministry's custody.

At some point later that same day a patrol team had "happened to hear voices coming from the cell." Odd, because Malfoy had ordered Potter to be given food and water and left alone until the next day, so Lesath could activate the cell and Potter would be finally be dealt with permanently. The Auror team had tried to open the cell, only to find a metal plate welded over the doorway, a plate that resisted Blasting Curses as if it were true-forged rather than Conjured or Tranfigured. The amount of magical power required to conjure such a plate was beyond the physical and magical capabilities of most wizards, Malfoy knew.

Up in the control room Lestrange, breaking prison protocol, had ordered brooms in the air to stop Potter escaping. Six Aurors had scrambled onto the roof of Azakaban in time to see Potter and another wizard flying away in some type of Muggle flying contraption, a device one of the Muggleborn Aurors at HQ had identified as an "ultralight aircraft." There was a picture of the craft attached to the report, taken with a pair of Omnioculars by one of the Aurors who'd thought to bring it topside with him.

The Aurors had given chase using top-of-the-line Firebolt Mark IVs and had quickly caught up and surrounding Potter and the other wizard in the Muggle flying machine, but they had activated some type of propulsion devices and had quickly outstripped the Aurors in speed. Whereupon the team returned to Azkaban to report the breakout.

He looked up at his two minions. "Is that all?" he asked in a flat voice.

"We're still reviewing images taken by the Omnioculars," Crabbe said in his surprisingly soft, quiet voice. "Auror Reynolds will have a report ready in ten minutes."

"Bring me the Omnioculars, now," Malfoy demanded. "I'll review it myself." Crabbe nodded and left the room, leaving Goyle alone.

"Did Lestrange submit a report?" Malfoy asked him.

"No, sir," Goyle shook his head. "Do you want him to? I can order him to prepare one."

"No. I'll deal with that," Malfoy said, and from the coldness in his voice Goyle knew Lesath Lestrange was not going to fare well in that exchange.

Crabbe returned with the Omnioculars and handed it to Malfoy. Malfoy brought the device up to his eyes and began adjusting the Playback knob until the image of the Muggle aircraft came into view. He twisted the Magnify dial until he could see the backs of Potter's and the other wizard's head. "Come on, come on," he muttered, nudging the playback speed forward to cover the footage more quickly. "Show me who you are, dammit!"

Potter looked back at the Aurors chasing them, then said something to the other wizard. The viewpoint was shifting as the Auror using the Omnioculars pulled alongside the Muggle aircraft, still recording, but the wizard had turned to Potter to say something and his face still wasn't visible. Malfoy growled in frustration as the vehicle suddenly dipped out of view. The viewpoint followed it downward, but the aircraft suddenly put on a burst of speed as blue-white fire erupted from the twin tubes mounted on either side of the craft and it pulled away from the pursuing Aurors.

The image was still tracking the aircraft (the Auror must've hit the Frame Lock button to keep it in view) as it receded into the distance ahead of them. Malfoy kept turning up the Magnify dial until it reached maximum, hoping against hope that the other wizard would — _there_! He did glance behind him at the Aurors! Mafoy froze the playback. The image was small, however, and the wizard's face was hard to make out clearly. He studied it carefully, trying to identify the man.

Malfoy suddenly sat back, taking the Omnioculars away from his eyes. He must be mistaken. The wizard's identity had suddenly come to him, but it could not be _that_ wizard! He had been dead over a month now!

"What is it, Boss?" Crabbe asked. "What'd you see?"

Malfoy held out the Omnioculars. "Look at the man in there, tell me if you know who he is." Crabbe took the device and stared into the twin eyepieces, his face screwed up in concentration.

"Face is familiar," Crabbe said, after nearly half a minute of looking. "But I don't recognize him from anyone —" he paused for a second. "Well, he sort of resembles that wizard Potter hung out with a lot in the past year. Er—James Monroe, that's who I'm thinking of!"

"I thought he was killed by Potter," Goyle said.

"He was," Crabbe agreed. "But this guy looks just like him." He handed the Omnioculars to Goyle, who stared at the image for several seconds before nodding agreement. Both men looked at Malfoy.

"Don't be ridiculous," Malfoy said chidingly. "It's probably someone Polyjuiced to look like Monroe so we wouldn't figure out his true identity. Find out what make and model that aircraft was; I want you two to check on recent purchases. And see if you can find out what they used to boost that thing's speed up fast enough to outrun Mark IVs."

"Yes, Boss," Crabbe said, and he and Goyle hurried out of the office.

Malfoy had dismissed the idea of the second wizard being Monroe in front of his men, but he had an uneasy feeling about what he'd seen. Could Monroe somehow have survived the Killing Curse? He would have to question Potter's friends, find out what they knew about both Monroe and Potter's latest escape from Azkaban. He took out his wand — his original wand, the thirteen-inch yew with the phoenix feather core. With Potter's wand destroyed, he would have no more trouble with Priori Incatatem. Soon, once he discovered where Potter was hiding, there would be no more Harry Potter; of that, he would make sure _personally_ this time.

**~ooo~**

A thousand feet above the highlands of Scotland two wizards hovered on brooms, preparing to unleash one of the deadliest magic spells in existence — Fiendfyre, cursed magical fire that consumed any solid matter it touched.

Harry floated on his broom a dozen feet from Monroe, who held the Pioneer 11 plaque in preparation of levitating a safe distance from both of them so Harry could cast the Fiendfyre spell at it. "Ready?" Monroe called, and Harry nodded, holding his wand up ready to cast the spell. The plaque floated out and away from Monroe, coming to a stop about 30 yards away. "Can you hit that, Harry?" he asked.

"Of course I can," Harry muttered, a bit nettled by the question. He moved away from Monroe, putting about 40 yards between the two of them so the Fiendfyre wouldn't swerve to attack him before it reached the plaque.

"_Ignis Malum Perimaximus_!" he shouted, pointing his wand at the plaque with the necessary wand gestures, and yellow-white flame burst from the tip of his wand, twisting and turning but still aimed directly toward its target. It engulfed the plaque, and Monroe immediately Banished it upwards into the sky, where it receded like a meteor in reverse until it went out of view. Both Harry and Monroe watched for some time before Monroe nodded and they spiraled back to Earth.

"I think we can put this back now," Monroe said, gesturing toward the Pioneer probe. "But first —" he gestured with his wand and a golden plate appeared in his other hand, a duplicate of the probe's original plaque. He fastened it back on the probe, then gestured with his wand and the probe disappeared.

"So what's next?" Monroe asked, turning back to Harry. "Go back and rescue Hermione? Or maybe Sirius? Fred and George? There are actually quite a few people you know stuck in Azkaban at the moment."

But Harry walked over and sat down in one of the chairs Monroe had conjured when they first arrived in Scotland. "I was thinking more along the lines of some questions you can answer for me, such as whether you can show me how to hack into those crystal Sources. That would be pretty handy to know when I eventually get around to fighting Voldemort."

"Well, yes," Monroe agreed, slowly. "That _would_ be handy, if you could learn the internal language of the Sources."

"_You_ did it," Harry pointed out, rather truculently. "I just watched you send Pioneer 11 back to where it was in its trajectory away from Eart, if that's what you really did. How long did it take you to learn the language that you used to control that Source of Magic crystal thing earlier?"

"Several thousand years of subjective time," Monroe said. "Even with me tutoring you, it would take you years — _decades_ — to learn even the most rudimentary elements of the language and speak it correctly enough to engage the Sources —"

"What about just feeding the information directly into my brain," Harry suggested, tapping himself on the forehead. "Like they did in that movie, _The Matrix_, for example."

"We're not in _The Matrix_," Monroe hedged.

"So that's something you're incapable of, is it?" Harry asked shrewdly.

"I didn't say that," Monroe said impatiently. He stared at Harry for a few seconds, then grinned. "You know, this sort of feels like we're in a story you've rubbed a magic lamp and me, a genie, pops out and tells you I'll grant you three wishes."

"Except that I don't think you're a genie."

"You don't? What do you think I am, then?"

"I don't know," Harry answered. "But I'm not convinced that you are what you say you are."

"Do you think I have a reason to lie to you, Harry?" Monroe asked.

"I don't know," Harry admitted. "But I can't be sure you have a reason to be completely honest with me, either. You've been missing for over a month, presumed dead, then you show up saying you've been inside a crystal created by advanced technology, learning how to use that technology directly. While that's for all intents and purposes what I've been trying to achieve for the past two decades, I'm not seeing a lot of evidence to support it beyond a few wizard's tricks."

"You don't thing those things I did were beyond anything any other wizard could do?" Monroe asked pointedly.

"Not really," Harry said, crossing his arms. "There's another wizard who could do things no one else can do — Voldemort."

Monroe chuckled. "You don't think so?" Harry said challengingly. "He knew Interdict-level spells that he got from Slytherin's Monster, the Basilisk, before he killed it. For all I know that Pioneer 11 probe was simply a duplicate of the one in space that you created to fool me."

"What about visiting Hermione in her cell in Azkaban?" Monroe reminded him. "How do you explain that?"

"I don't have to," Harry said. "It's your burden to convince me you're on the up-and-up and not for example Voldemort in disguise."

"Hmm." Monroe looked thoughtful for several seconds. "Okay, if you want total honesty, we can have a Q&A session and I'll honestly answer any question you ask me. Start now, if you like."

"Okay. First question: _Are_ you going to grant me three wishes?" Harry asked plaintively.

Monroe smiled. "I may grant you _one_ wish, but _I'm_ going to pick it — you just get to decide whether you want it or not."

"What's the wish?"

"I'll reserve the answer to that until after you're convinced of who and what I am."

Harry sat pondering for some time. "Well, I think I already know the answer to the question of whether souls exist —"

"And what's your answer?" Monroe asked.

"They don't. That's pretty obvious. But the existence of _magic_ means that your knowledge can be independent of your brain without relying on science. We see a lot of things in magic that display near-sentient behavior. The Sorting Hat is an example, though it mostly borrows the wearer's sentience rather than relying on anything innate in itself. I suppose a Horcrux is the ultimate magical example of the substrate independence of human-level sentience and consciousness."

"Yes," Monroe agreed. "It's too bad that so little was known about the brain and mind back when Herpo the Foul created the first Horcrux. He imagined the worst thing that could happen to imbue an object with your knowledge and experience, and decided that he must rip his immortal soul with the foulest deed imaginable — murder. It was a common enough belief back then that men possessed souls, and Herpo wanted to avoid the punishments of Tartarus in Hades, a place he very likely believed he would be sent to after death for his evil deeds. But what would murder mean to a man who could use it to cheat death?"

"Alright, let's move on to some interesting topics. The Source crystals you said are scattered across the Earth. How did you gain access to them without being a wizard yourself?"

Monroe didn't answer for several seconds. "Well," he finally said. "I suppose saying I'm not a wizard is not completely accurate."

"You don't need to be coy with me, James," Harry said impatiently. "Tell me what you _are_, not what you're not."

"What I _am_ is going to be a little hard for you to grasp," Monroe answered. "Even if it does vindicate everything you've been trying to do for the past two decades."

"Meaning?" Harry prompted.

"Meaning that I am what you've aspired to be for decades now," Monroe said. "Immortal. All-powerful. In effect, God, though I don't consider myself divine. I'm a post-human, a Power."

But Harry was shaking his head doubtfully. "What you're trying to suggest isn't possible. No one has developed a level of technology that would give them that kind of power. I've been watching all the sources of advanced technology in the world and I know no one has gotten anywhere _near_ that level of sophistication!"

"Of course not," Monroe agreed. "And the answer to that is, I didn't come from this world. In fact, I'm from an entirely different universe."

"Hmph," Harry snorted. "Okay, you can say something like that but I have no way to verify that you're telling me the truth. We can't prove whether other universes exist or not. You've given me information that I cannot falsify. From my viewpoint that's like telling me nothing — worse than nothing, really, it's almost the equivalent of lying to me!"

Monroe blew out a sigh. "I guess another demonstration is in order, this time one that hits a little closer to home. You're a perfect Occlumens, aren't you."

"You should know I am, I've told you so several times."

"I'm just setting up the parameters of the experiment," Monroe explained. "So if I can tell you exactly what you're thinking without ever looking you in the eye or even looking _at_ you, what will you think?"

"I'll think you're using an Interdict-level spell on me, like Voldemort would do if he wanted to convince me he's some kind of god from another dimension."

"Okay, scratch that." Monroe mused for a moment. "Have you ever seen _It's a Wonderful Life_?"

"Yes," Harry shook his head wearily. "Hermione makes me watch it with her just about every Christmas. Are you looking to earn your wings, Clarence? I can just ring a bell for you if you like — we don't need to go through all of that 'what if you were never born' crap."

"Maybe we can put a slight twist on that," Monroe suggested. Their surroundings suddenly _rippled_; Harry looked around quickly, but by the time he'd noticed it the effect had gone away.

"What happened? What did you do?" Harry demanded.

"That's what you're going to figure out," Monroe said. He took Harry's arm and they vanished. A moment later they were standing on a busy street in London.

They hadn't Apparated, Harry realized, nor had they used a Portkey. One moment they were in the Scottish Highlands, the next in London. He looked around, trying to orient himself, and discovered they were in front of —

"The Leaky Cauldron," Harry said, recognizing the small, grubby storefront wedged between a bookstore and record store on Charing Cross Road. "Monroe, we can't go in there! Even if Hannah doesn't turn me in, the Ministry may have offered a reward for me — somebody in there will want to collect it."

Monroe clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Don't worry, I've got your back, Jack, if anyone makes trouble for you." He opened the door for Harry. "Let's go."

Harry gave Monroe a doubtful look but stepped inside the pub. It was reasonably full for this time of day, with tables of witches and wizards sitting in groups of twos and threes at tables around the bar area. Conversations died down as they entered and heads turned their way. Harry tried not to catch anyone's eyes, but no one seemed particularly interested he was there. By the time he and Monroe reached the bar, people had turned back to their butterbeers and firewhiskies, and conversations were buzzing again. Strange, Harry thought. Maybe someone was contacting the Ministry covertly instead of challenging him directly.

Monroe held up two fingers toward Hannah Abbot, the owner, who was tending bar at that moment. "Two butterbeers," he said, dropping a Galleon on the bar.

"Coming up," Hannah said, reaching for the bottles behind the bar. She set them on the bar in front of the two men. "Are you two gentlemen new here in town?"

"What?" Harry said.

"Yes, we are," Monroe smiled. "Just flew in and boy, are our broom arms tired."

Hannah chuckled. "That's so bad I should cut you off right now."

"Oh, I haven't even begun to make bad jokes," Monroe laughed, picking up a bottle and taking a swig of butterbeer. "Ah, that hits the spot!"

Harry had watched the ensuing conversation with a growing sense of bewilderment. Hannah hadn't so much as looked twice at him. "Excuse me," he said to her. "Do you know who I am?"

"No," Hannah, said, giving him a quick once-over. "Should I?"

"You don't know Harry Potter when you see him?"  
>"No," Hannah said again. "Is that you?"<p>

"Yes!" Harry said emphatically. He brushed back the hair on his forehead, revealing his lightning scar. "Hello? Harry Potter?"

Hanna was giving him an odd look. "Oooh, cool scar!" she exclaimed. "But I still don't know who Harry Potter is. Excuse me." She went to wait on a wizard further down the bar.

Harry looked at Monroe, frowning. Okay, Hannah could be in on this, but if he was wanted by the Ministry why would she go along? He turned around to face the bar. "Does anyone here know who Harry Potter is?" he said loudly. "The Boy-Who-Lived?"

The murmur of conversations died down momentarily as people turned to stare at him. Harry looked at face after face, trying to find recognition, but saw nothing but blank stares. Then an elderly voice spoke quaveringly.

"I know who Harry Potter was," a very old woman, sitting with two other old witches, spoke up. "He died a long time ago, and shame on you for pretending to be him!" She pointed a wrinkled hand, her aged finger shaking at him in accusation.

Harry stared at the old woman who had scolded him. What was she babbling about? Harry had survived the encountere with Voldemort, why pretend otherwise? Harry peered at her. Her face was familiar but he was having trouble placing her — wait, that hand…

It had happened on his first trip to Diagon Alley, an old woman in this very bar had come over to shake his hand. Harry remembered the feel of her hand in his, old and shaking even back then. A name floated up in his memory. "Doris —?" he said, hesitantly.

The old woman shot him a suspicious look. "Do you know me, young man?"

"We met in this bar," Harry said. "A long time ago. I was with Professor McGonagall. We were in a hurry, but you wanted to shake my hand. I remember…" He remembered it clearly now, as if it had happened yesterday.

But the old woman was shaking her head. "Unless you're Neville Longbottom, you're not the Boy-Who-Lived, my lad! Harry Potter died on Halloween in 1981, along with his parents James and Lily Potter, killed by You-Know-Who."

"Voldemort," Harry said automatically, and there were gasps of horror and fear around the bar.

"Don't say that name in here!" Hannah said loudly from behind the bar. "We don't want any trouble!" She was looking upward as she said this, almost as if speaking to someone directly. "Please, no trouble!"

A large young man walked over to where Harry and Monroe were standing. "Maybe you two should move along," he suggested, pointing to the door. "We don't want any trouble in here."

"Alright, fine," Harry said, walking toward the door, where he turned back to stare at Monroe, waiting for him to follow. "Are you coming?"

"Sure," Monroe said, and walked back onto Charing Cross Road.

"That was either a very elaborately-staged prank," Harry growled, "or you've done something very — _weird_ — to me. I'm not sure which I'd rather it be right now."

Monroe grasped Harry's shoulder lightly. "Shall we try somewhere else? I have just the place in mind." Before Harry could so much as open his mouth to protest they were standing in front of a dilapidated red phone booth in front of a heavily graffitied though faded wall. "Here we go," Monroe said, stepping inside. Harry reluctantly followed.

The handset on the old-style phone was broken almost in half but Monroe picked it up and dialed 6-2-4-4-2. A woman's cool, calm voice spoke. "Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."

"Harry Potter-Evans-Verres and James Monroe," Monroe said into the handset. "We're to see — oh, let's see, how about Draco Malfoy?"

"Draco Malfoy does not work at the Ministry of Magic," the woman's voice responded. "Would you prefer to see someone else?"

"How about Arthur Weasley?" Monroe suggested.

There was a moment's silence; then, "Thank you," said the cool female voice. "Visitors, please take your badge and attach it to the front of your robes."

Two badges appeared in the coin slot. Monroe took them both and handed one to Harry. "Oh, look," Monroe said, pointing at his badge. "Pictures and everything!" Harry looked; there was indeed a picture of James Monroe on the badge above his name. Below the name were the words "Visitor to see Mr. Weasley." Harry glanced at his own badge. His full name and picture were on it with the same words beneath. When did the Ministry start putting pictures on the visitor badges?

"Visitors to the Ministry," the woman's voice continued, "you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium."

The phone booth shuddered and they began moving downward. "Why are we going to see Arthur Weasley?" Harry asked, not altogether sure the man would want to see _him_. Harry had met Arthur Weasley only a handful of times, and the man's muddled and confused enthusiasm about Muggle technology had usually set Harry's teeth on edge. Arthur was also not particularly happy that Harry and Hermione had gotten married, an event that he believed had left Ron bitter and emotionally crippled for years afterwards. For the short time Hermione and Ron had dated Arthur had taken quite a shine to her; she happily explained many details of Muggle society and Muggle "artifacts" like doorknobs, toasters and microwave ovens to him, though Arthur seemed incapable of grasping evn the basic concept of electricity.

And there was another thing about entering the Ministry that making Harry uncomfortable as well. "You do realize that once they figure out that 'Harry Potter-Evans-Verres' is really Harry Potter, we're going to have a hell of a fight on our hands."

"If you really think that," Monroe asked, "why did you come with me?"

It was a reasonable question. "Morbid curiosity, perhaps," Harry muttered. "For some reason you obviously _don't_ expect us to be arrested, and I still don't know what that charade in the Leaky Cauldron was about —"

At that moment the phone booth came to an abrupt halt. "The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day," said the woman's voice, and the door to the booth opened of its own accord. Harry looked at Monroe for a moment, then shook his head and stepped out of the phone booth.

As usual, the seat of British magical government was bustling with activity. People were coming and going through the gilded fireplaces set along each wall of the long hall. There were impromptu gatherings happening as two or three wizards would greet each other and begin conversations. Harry glancing up at the ceiling, Harry saw that it was a familiar peacock blue with its ever-changing golden symbols merging and flowing with each other in undecipherable (but interesting) patterns. It all seemed very familiar.

But it also seemed, somehow, wrong. Harry recognized several minor Ministry employees as he walked past them, but if they even looked at him it was only a glance, with no recognition in it. This was beginning to feel quite eerie, he thought.

"Over here," a voice called out, and Harry saw Eric Munch, the Ministry security person, gesturing for their attention. They turned and walked toward the desk. "You're here to see the Minister?" he asked.

Harry raised an eyebrow. This was getting ridiculous now. "We're here to see Arthur Weasley," he said, neither confirming nor denying Munch's question.

"His undersecretary will be down shortly to fetch you up to see him," Munch answered. "Meanwhile —" he held out a hand, making a "give me" gesture. Harry stared at him blankly. He had been to the Ministry countless times in the past, his wand had been on file for decades. What was Munch asking for —

"Here's mine," Monroe said, handing Munch his wand. Munch placed it on an instrument on his desk. There was a humming sound and a strip of parchment appeared from a slot in the base of the device. Munch tore it off and read it out loud.

"Mahogany, twelve inches, dragon heartstring core," Munch said. "Been in use…" he looked up uncertainly at Monroe. "Eighty-seven years?"

"It's a family heirloom," Monroe said, taking the wand back. He turned to Harry and gave a wink Munch didn't see. "Your turn," he said.

Harry slowly handed over his wand. "Holly, eleven inches, phoenix-feather core, been in use 35 years. Is that right?" Munch asked, looking up from the strip of parchment the device had disgorged for Harry's wand. Harry nodded and Munch handed his wand back to him. "Wait here for the Undersecrerary to come down and see you," he said in a bored tone, pointing to a pair of chairs next to his desk.

Monroe sat down. Harry stared at him a moment, then shook his head and sat down next to him. "_Arthur Weasley_ is the Minister of Magic?" he whispered incredulously. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard since — ever!"

Monroe was staring past Harry, at a person who had just walked out of one of the lifts beyond the golden gates and was coming their way. "Wait'll you see who his Undersecretary is."

Harry turned and froze. It was Hermione. He stared, dumbfounded, as she approached the security station. She stopped in front of Harry and Monroe, giving them appraising looks. "You gentlemen are here to see Minister Weasley, I take it? Will you tell me the reason for your visit today?"

"Just stopping by to say hello," Monroe said, pleasantly.

Hermione gave him a stern look. Harry couldn't help but think of Professor McGonagall. "The Minister is quite busy and cannot take the time to simply 'say hello,' as you put it," she said. "I'm sorry," she said, not sounding very sincere, and turned to leave.

"Hold on a sec," Harry said, standing. Hermione turned back with an impatient look on her face. "Are you in on this, too? This can't even be the Ministry, you're supposed to be in Azkaban right now!"

"Sir, I have no idea what you're blithering about," Hermione said frostily. "Now if you'll excuse me —"

"I won't," Harry said, taking hold of her arm.

"Let go of me!" Hermioe said loudly. "Security!" Munch stood up, taking out his wand, but Monroe gestured toward him and Munch suddenly became motionless.

Harry, seeing Munch couldn't interfere, focused his attention on Hermione again. He let go of her arm. "Tell me you don't know who I am," he demanded.

"I don't!" she retorted hotly. "Who are you?"

"I'm Harry Potter."

She stared at him for several seconds. "No, you're not," she said at last. "Harry Potter was a little boy who was killed by You-Know-Who back in 1981 along with his parents, James and Lily Potter, in Godric's Hollow on Halloween night."

"That's not what happened!" Harry insisted, but the nagging _wrongness_ of where he was beginning to make him think otherwise. He turned to Monroe. "Okay, you win. Joke's over. You've had your fun, or whatever the hell reasons you're doing this for."

"To convince you that I am what I say I am," Monroe said quietly. He gestured toward Hermione. "Mrs. Weasley here doesn't know you because in this reality you died that night in Godric's Hollow. Mrs. Weasley," he said, addressing Hermione directly. "Tell us about Neville Longbottom."

She gave him an odd look but answered, "Neville Longbottom, also known as the Boy-Who-Lived, was a young boy whom it was prophesized would one day defeat the Dark Lord. When You-Know-Who heard about the prophecy, he decided to kill every child born near the end of July. Harry Potter was born on July 31, so he and his parents were targeted for death. Before she died Lily Potter managed to send her Patronus to the Longbottoms and warn them they would be attacked as well. Forewarned, the Longbottoms were able to escape the country, where they lived in hiding in France until it was time for Neville to attend Hogwarts."

Harry had listened to this with growing unease. "Voldemort never found them in all that time?" he asked.

Hermione made a violent _shushing_ gesture. "Don't say his name!" she hissed. "He'll hear you!"

"He's still alive, then?" Monroe asked.

"Of course he's still alive!" Hermione's voice, though shrill, was barely above a whisper. "We thought Neville had defeated him long ago, but he survived, somehow. Neville died, too, so there's no one alive today who can defeat him."

"This can't be real," Harry moaned, utterly confused. He rounded on Monroe. "What did you do to me?!" he said loudly, attracting the attention of those passing by the security station.

"I told you," Monroe said patiently. "You're in a reality where Harry Potter died as a child and Neville Longbottom became the Boy-Who-Lived, even though he was never hit with a Killing Curse and didn't defeat You-Know-Who on a Halloween night."

"I don't know what you two are talking about," Hermione said, frowning at both of them. "But the Ministry of Magic is no place to come round and pull stupid pranks like this. You both need to leave," she finished, pointing to the other side of the Atrium where the Visitors' Exit was located. "Oh, and please take your Body-Bind off Mr. Munch, thank you very much!"

She stood that way, finger pointing toward the exit, for a long time, until Harry realized that neither she nor anyone else in the Atrium were moving. Everything was frozen. Even dropped objects were suspended in mid-air. It was just like that time in front of the Room of Requirement when everyone but Harry and Monroe had stopped moving. "You really are doing all this," he said to Monroe.

"Yes," Monroe said. "I hope you're finally convinced."

"I don't think I have a choice now," Harry said. "So what do we do now?"

"We go back to your reality, find Voldemort, and you defeat him after destroying his remaining Horcruxes," Monroe answered. "Oh, and I suppose I should tell you, there are still two Horcruxes left, not just his wand." Monroe pointed to Harry's forehead. "When Voldemort tried to kill you, the Killing Curse rebounded and hit him. Though it couldn't permanently kill him, it broke off a piece of his soul, which traveled back along the reflected Killing Curse into your forehead, creating the lightning scar you have to this day."

Harry touched his forehead. "You mean — _I'm_ a Horcrux, too?"

"An inadvertent one," Monroe clarified. "Voldemort likely had an object with him he intended to make into one with your death."  
>"How long have you known about this?" Harry demanded, suddenly angry.<p>

"Well, since you're still able to talk in Parseltongue, I would have known the first time I heard you speak it," Monroe replied. "But I had removed most of my knowledge and power while I was interacting with you and the Wizarding world, before Ginnymort tried to kill me. Just before he did, in fact, he said my entire name, James Harrison Monroe, which I had set as a trigger that would restore all of my memories and power if someone other than me said it. I couldn't have been permanently killed anyway, but it would have been a bit embarrassing if a half-mad genius wizard was able to kill my human body. Are you ready to go back?"

Harry looked around the Atrium at the frozen witches and wizards. "What about this world's Voldemort?" he asked. "What happens to these people?"

Monroe shrugged. "I could find out," he said, "but are you really more interested in this world's Voldemort than your own?"

"I —" Harry really did want to say yes. He didn't want anything to happen to Hermione, even if she wasn't the one he was married to. "Can you at least tell me if he's defeated?"

Monroe stared into nothingness for a few seconds. "Yes, he is eventually defeated," he said, "but it will be years from now and at the cost of many lives."

"Including Hermione's?"

"No," Monroe said after a moment. "In fact, she will help to defeat him."

Harry relaxed. That was heartening news, at least. "Let's go back," he said. "I have a Voldemort of my own to defeat."

**~ooo~**

Hermione Granger-Potter looked up at the sound of a padlock being unlocked outside her cell door. She didn't know how long it had been since Harry had appeared in her cell, but she had almost convinced herself that it was a hallucination. It hadn't been real, she told herself; when something too good to be true happens, most often it's not true at all.

But she really, _really_ hoped it would be Harry coming through that door—hoped more than anything she had ever dared hope before, if only because it would convince her that she hadn't been hallucinating, hadn't been delusional, and that he wasn't dead.

The man who stepped throught the door, however, was not Harry; was in fact as far from Harry Potter as a person could be and still be a person at all, though Hermione could no longer think of this man as human, whatever his form might be.

"Good evening, my dear Hermione," Draco Malfoy said, as the door shut behind him on its own. "I trust you have been comfortable here while we prepare for your trial at the Wizengamot." Hermione didn't answer.

"I'm sure you realize it takes a little time to prepare such things," Draco went on. "You've been through this before, as I recall."

"Why are you here, Malfoy?" Hermione asked without looking up at him. "Come to gloat?"

"No, not at all," Malfoy assured her. "I'm here to make sure you are comfortable." He paused for a moment. "Did you know that Harry escaped from Azkaban earlier today?"

Hermione looked up quickly. "No," she said, after a moment. "But why tell me that?"

"I was curious what you knew about it," Malfoy replied.

"I don't know anything about it."

"What do you know about James Monroe?" Malfoy asked, unexpectedly.

Too late, Hermione lowered her eyes again. "Nothing," she said, "except that he's dead."

"Is he?" Malfoy said, with irony in his voice. "Are you quite sure?"

"You convicted Harry of his murder," she said, bitterly. "You must remember _that_."

"The Wizengamot convicted him," Malfoy reminded her. "I merely made him available for their judgment. You yourself would not be here if you'd had the good sense not to help your husband break out of Azkaban the first time."

"I didn't help him then, but I would have!" she blazed at him defiantly. "I should never have left the Ministry — you've gone completely mad with power!"

"Sour grapes ill becomes you, my dear," Malfoy said with false pity. "I simply know how to utilize authority more effectively than you ever will."

"Abuse it, you mean," Hermione retorted. "You and your goon squad in the Auror Department — and you haven't even appointed a new Head Auror yet, have you, in spite of the directives that order you to do so within 30 days of your taking the office of Minister of Magic."

"Those are guidelines, not laws," Malfoy said mildly, enjoying the conversation. For years he'd wanted to rub Granger's nose in it when he finally became Minister of Magic, and this was his chance. "Don't worry about it, I'm handling the workload quite well, thank you.

"Now, as to my earlier question, about Monroe," he went on. "I'm afraid I really must insist on hearing what you know about him."

"I know he's dead, according to you," Hermione said stubbornly.

"But you don't really believe that," Malfoy reminded her. "You've already given that away, my dear."

"You can stop calling me that anytime, _Draco_," she spat. "I'm not your 'dear,' — until a month ago I was your superior."

"In the government, perhaps," Malfoy sneered. "Never in terms of who was the better wizard."

Hermione laughed derisively. "Did you forget I nearly _killed_ you near the end of our first year?"

Malfoy smiled humorlessly. "That was a False-Memory Charm, Miss Granger."

"Ah–_ha_!" Hermione crowed. "I knew it! That's the first time you've ever admitted that in front of me!"

"Enjoy your moment of vindication, Miss Granger," Malfoy said coldly. "It is now time for you to tell me what _I_ wish to know." He drew his wand and pointed it at Hermione's face. "You can tell me willingly and avoid a lot of pain, or you can keep quiet and I'll learn what you know anyway. Your choice."

"Go to hell," Hermione said.

"You will be there before I am. _Legilimens_!"

A giant hand reached out and hit Hermione hard in the forehead. It grabbed her head and squeezed, making her feel like it was going to burst open.

_ "Harry, what in the world —?" She was reliving the visitation — or vision — or whatever it was — she'd had of Harry in her cell just hours ago. "Harry," she was saying, "how did you get in here? I thought they had you locked up — an Auror told me you were brought in a while ago."_

_ Behind Harry Hermione could see that the cell door was open. Malfoy standing just outside, watching them. His eyes were red — she could see them glowing in the darkness of the cell. But he wasn't important now. Only Harry…_

_ "Um," Harry said, "I'm not sure I can tell you how I got here, but —"_

_ "What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded. "How can you not know how you got here?"_

_ "It was — it was Monroe." Malfoy was suddenly standing next to them. Hermione still ignored him. "Harry, he's dead, isn't he? How can you say something like that — you know it makes no sense."_

_ "I know, but it's true. He managed to avoid the Killing Curse, somehow — he won't tell me did it, but —"  
>"He will tell <em>me_!" Malfoy's voice echoed inside her head, giving her excruciating pain. "What else do you know of Monroe, Granger?!"_

_ "Nothing!" Hermione shouted, and the pain increased immeasurably. "NOTHING! I SWEAR!" she screamed. "THAT'S ALL HE SAID!"_

_ "I don't believe you, liar! Admit the truth or suffer even _more_!"_

_ "I — DON'T — KNOW!" Hermione fell forward off the bed, hitting the cold steel floor and curling into a ball, hoping somehow it would minimize the pain. "STOP IT — STOP IT!" _

_ "Tell the truth and I will stop," Malfoy's voice said. "Continue to lie and you will suffer until you die or go insane!"_

There was a burst of silver light and Malfoy fell back against the door, shielding his eyes. A moment later two men stood between him and the woman curled on the floor.

"What the hell?" Harry said, looking at Hermione on the floor and Draco Malfoy still shielding his eyes from the brilliance of Harry's Patronus.

**~ooo~**

It took Harry only a moment to figure out what had happened. The Patronus vanished and he lunged at the Minister. "You motherfucking son of a bitch!" he shouted, grabbing Malfoy by his throat and wand arm and pinning him to the wall of the cell. "What have you done to her?!"

"Learning — about your — friend — Monroe," Malfoy gasped around the hand threatening to strangle him. "He seems rather alive for someone who should be dead."

"You should know," Harry growled, as Monroe lifted Hermione from the floor and laid her on the cot, then turned to face both men. "You're the one who tried to kill him."

Malfoy's free hand suddenly pressed against Harry's chest, and a force pushed Harry away and into the air, hard enough to propel him across the room. But Monroe put up his own hand and Harry's backward momentum was arrested, leaving him floating just above the ground in front of Monroe. He dropped lightly to the ground.

Malfoy's wand came forward to point at Harry, but it suddenly flew from his hand and was caught by Monroe. Malfoy looked at the two of them, no trace of fear showing on his face. "Now what, Potter? Do you intend to kill me?" He smiled evilly. "Or kill me _again_, should I say? No doubt your friend Monroe has told you who I really am."

"I figured it out for myself," Harry said. "And yes, I'm here to kill you again, this time for the _last_ time."

"Really?" That seemed to amuse Malfoy. "Have you figured out how to destroy that final Horcrux yet?"

"Already did it," Harry retorted. "Burned it with Fiendfyre."

Malfoy shook his head in disbelief. "No Fiendfyre could travel that far, Potter. You will have to lie more convincingly than that."

"We brought Pioneer 11 back to Earth," Monroe said. "It made your Horcrux much more accessible."

The triumphant sneer on Malfoy's face faded, just a little. "Impossible," he argued. "No Summoning Charm could reach that far into space. You would have to maintain the spell for hours before it even reached the probe in the first place! And it would take days before the probe would reach Earth afterwards."

"Then this should make for an interesting duel," Harry said. "I say the Horcrux is destroyed, you say it still exists. I suppose you'll find out after I defeat you."

"Of that, you have no chance," Malfoy sneered. "My mind is now integrated with three of the most powerful wizards of their day — Lord Voldemort, David Monroe, and Quirinus Quirrell. Add to that to my mind and body and you will not survive a duel against our combined might." He glanced at his wand in Monroe's hand. "Unless you intend to simply kill me and hope I do not return."

"No, we're going to duel fair and square," Harry said. "I'll give you the chance you never gave to anyone else." He turned to Monroe. "How is Hermione?"

"She's doing well now," Monroe said. "I cast a spell to make her sleep dreamlessly. She'll wake up in a few hours feeling refreshed. We should be done by then."

"Good," Harry nodded. He turned to stare with loathing at Malfoy. "Do your thing, James."

The cell walls around them vanished, replaced with the Highlands of Scotland, in the same snow covered valley where Harry and Monroe had arrived after escaping Azkaban.

"Interesting," Malfoy said. "We did not Apparate or Portkey. What type of magical transportation was that?"

"My type," Monroe said. He tossed Malfoy's wand back to him as Harry took out his own.

"Am I going to duel both of you at the same time?" Malfoy asked. "I wouldn't mind that, really. It would make the duel more interesting, in fact." He looked at Harry. "You remember that Auror I fought in Azkaban, Potter? I've improved since then."

"It's just you and me," Harry said.

"I will act as Harry's second," Monroe said. "You may ask for one as well, though we will have to wait until your second arrives."

"I will not need a second," Malfoy declared haughtily. "If you agree not to intervene if Potter is killed or injured too severely to continue."

"I so agree," Monroe said. "Besides," he added, "you wouldn't last one second in a full-on fight with me."

"A bold claim," Malfoy sneered.

"But a true one," Monroe shrugged. "Tell you what — if you happen to beat Harry, and you want to take me on for afters, we can have a go as well."

Harry glanced at Monroe. "Thanks for your support," he said sarcastically.

"Oh, I'm sure you're going to win, Harry," Monroe hastened to say. "Well, relatively sure, at least. Malfoy-mort does know a lot more magic than you do, you know."

Malfoy gave Monroe a sharp look. "Mind your tongue," he said coldly. "Or I will remove it from your mouth."

"Let's just get on with this," Harry said impatiently. Nothing was going to stop him from defeating Voldemort this time — not the Dark wizard's superior skill, nor his greater knowledge of spells, including Interdict level magic, nor the fact that he was actually facing four wizards rolled into one. He looked at Malfoy. "Do you want to observe the amenities of proper dueling?"

"If you like," Malfoy said contemptuously. Both men took steps backward until they were the proper starting distance apart to begin the duel. "This duel is to the death," he said, unnecessarily, his voice becoming cold and hard. "No quarter will be asked or given."

"Agreed," Harry responded. Monroe moved away, off the field of honor, and both Harry and Malfoy raised their wands in preparation for battle.

For a time, no one moved. Then Malfoy thrust his wand toward Harry, shouting the opening words of the duel: "_Avada Kedavra_!"

As an opening curse it probably wasn't the best choice, given the distance between them, but it was obviously meant to intimidate Harry. He easily Apparated out of the way, appearing only yards behind Malfoy's location.

But Malfoy had Apparated as well, off to Harry's right, and cast two Cutting Curses toward him, meant to dismember him. Harry erected Shields to deflect the curses, Apparating to a different location and casting a spell not at Malfoy but toward his feet — a Gouging Spell to remove the dirt below him and send Malfoy off-balance. Malfoy evaded this by Apparating away to a position behind Harry, throwing a Blasting Hex and immediately Apparating to another location to throw another Cutting Curse at him. Each spell required a slightly altered Shield Charm to maximize its effect agains the curse. Harry cast two Shield Charms, each with the correct harmonic to deflect the curse that hit them.

Harry then cast Expelliarmus, hoping to catch Malfoy off-guard, but the Minister vanished. Harry waited anxiously for him to reappear, but for long seconds he was the only person in the dueling area.

Then Malfoy's mocking laugh seemed to echo around him. "That was a good warm-up session, Potter — now let's down to it for real." Harry looked around, trying to identify the location of the voice, but he saw no one. Malfoy had evidently Disillusioned himself.

Malfoy's voice shouted "_Avada Kedavra_!" again and on pure instinct Harry dodged to one side again. A flash of green next to him told him he'd evaded the Killing Curse, but it disappeared _into_ the ground. Harry looked and saw that Malfoy was _flying_, flying without a broom, and he was headed straight down toward Harry. Harry Apparated away, toward an old tree with snow-filled branches, and reappeared beneath it, hoping for a moment of cover from the airborne Malfoy.

There was a rule in formal dueling about staying within the dueling area, but that rule didn't apply in a duel to the death; you could Apparate as far away as you liked, though it might look like you were running away and gave your opponent the right to say you forfeited the duel. Harry didn't know how to make himself fly, but he had to do something to counter the advantage a flying Malfoy had against him. He spotted a long, straight branch on the ground, sticking up out of the snow. Yes, that would do nicely…

Malfoy had pulled out of his dive and was arcing up into the air again. Potter had vanished but there weren't many places he could hide. Malfoy smirked as he angled his trajectory downward again, heading toward the lone tree where he suspected Potter was shielding himself from view by the tree's snowy branches.

Malfoy slowed a bit as he approached the ground, leveling off to fly beneath the tree's branches and hit Potter with a Cutting Curse. That would incapacitate him enough to finish off with the Killing Curse if he survived the first one. But Potter wasn't hiding under the tree's branches. Malfoy pulled up as he left the tree behind, hoping to find another sign of where Potter had gotten to.

A Stunner whizzing just past his ear alerted Malfoy to Potter's location. Above him! Malfoy changed direction instantly and began zig-zagging to make himself harder to hit. Had Potter learned to fly as well?

Harry straddled the tree branch he'd enchanted with a Broom-Flying Charm. The basic spell had been developed a thousand years ago, and the version of the spell Harry was using would propel a broomstick up to 100 MPH and let the rider move it up, down, left and right. The broom couldn't hover, but Harry didn't plan on making himself a stationary target. He shot downward, firing several more Stunning Charms at Malfoy's zig-zagging form before pulling up to try and chase him, but Malfoy suddenly Disapparated in mid-air.

Harry immediately began to change direction, knowing Malfoy would appear above him and try to curse him. He spun the branch so he was upside down, holding on by his legs crossed over the branch, hoping to catch Malfoy unawares. What he saw coming for him made him gasp.

Malfoy had cast Fiendfyre! A stream of magical cursed fire darted toward him, forming itself into a fiery eagle, its talons extended to grab Harry. He knew its very touch would instantly reduce him to ash. Harry let go of the branch and Apparated away as the Fiendfyre caught the branch and destroyed it.

Harry reappeared just above ground level, still on his back, his legs still crossed above him, and slammed sideways into the snow, his momentum relative to the ground the same as when he Disapparated. Fortunately the snow provided a cushion of sorts, and Harry slid for several yards before coming to rest. He could still see the fiery eagle in the sky — Malfoy was searching the landscape for him, prepared to send the Fiendfyre after him when he was spotted. Malfoy had a lot more control over the cursed fire than Harry had been able to muster — the fiery eagle was soaring back and forth and Malfoy looked one way then another. Harry immediately Disapparated again, this time under the tree where he'd gotten the branch.

Enchanting another branch for flying again was out of the question. Malfoy could manipulate the Fiendfyre eagle faster than he could fly. He needed to buy some time, think how to counter the Fiendfyre. Disillusionment took too long, what could he — the snow suddenly gave Harry his answer.

A simple Color Change Charm turned him as white as the snow around him. There was so much snow on the ground he would be almost invisible against it! Now, what to do about the Fiendfyre…?

But at that moment the eagle disappated, spreading its wings and seeming to break apart into smaller fires which also dissipated on their own. Malfoy floated down, smiling triumphantly as he walked toward the tree Harry was using for cover.

"Come, Mr. Potter," Malfoy said, addressing him as Quirrell had done during his first year. "We should face each other as wizards, not as children playing at dueling. It ill-becomes both of us, don't you think?"

_He sounds different now_, Harry thought. As if he suddenly changed his personality the way another wizard might change his robes. Harry had the feeling he would be facing Voldemort directly now. And if what Dumbledore told him once about their wands was right, he might have a way to beat him.

Harry stepped out from behind the tree. "Is that what you want, Tom? To fight me like a real wizard? I get the impression you've been letting Malfoy do your dirty work so far."

Malfoy's eyes had acquired a red gleam. "The boy was eager to prove himself to me — he believed he could best you on his own. I might have let that continue for a while longer but he was about to lose control of himself — and the Fiendfyre — so I put a stop to his participation in our final confrontation."

"And now you're going to take me on yourself again," Harry said, giving Voldemort a stony look. "It's been a long time coming, but I'm ready now."

"Ah, Mr. Potter, don't delude yourself," Malfoy's mouth smiled Voldemort's cold, cruel smile. "You stand no chance of defeating me this time — I have been preparing for this day for almost 30 years, while you have had only an inkling that I still existed for a bare month or so. You have immersed yourself in Muggle business and finances, building a fortune you won't live to enjoy. It will become mine when I have defeated you and taken every scrap of your knowledge from your brain." That cold smile flashed again. "I may even _become_ you, Mr. Potter, all the better to enjoy the fruits of your labor s and the fame that has arisen around the Boy-Who-Lived."

Harry shook his head. "You can keep on thinking that, Tom, but you're getting a bit ahead of yourself. You have yet to actually defeat me, and from my standpoint that is going to be much more difficult than you expect. I've spent the past 30 years studying magic as well as business, and I'd bet I know some things even you're not aware of."

"I think not, Mr. Potter," Voldemort replied coldly. He held up his wand, and Harry recognized the yew shaft, over a foot long. He suppressed a smile. His own wand, brother to Voldemort's, would cause the Priori Incatatem effect if they were forced to duel one another.

His next words, however, were chilling. "Do you think me unaware of the relationship our two wands hold? I had the opportunity, as Quirrell, to talk with Mr. Ollivander one afternoon many years ago. He knew a great deal about wands, as you know; he boasted he could remember every single wand he ever sold. He remembered this wand, for example, and yours as well. He found it interesting that your and my wands, so well-suited to each of us, were brothers, sharing a magical core from the same creature."

"So you know what will happen if we duel," Harry said quietly. "Are you afraid you will lose?"

"Nonsense," Voldemort scoffed. "My will alone is greater than yours, Mr. Potter — add to that the willpower of David Monroe and Quirinus Quirrell, and not even Dumbledore himself could beat me, let alone you."

"Well, pride goeth before a fall, as the saying goes," Harry reminded him. He raised his wand in preparation for battle. "Are you ready?"

"In just a moment," Voldemort said. He raised his wand, as if preparing for battle once again, but then returned it to his robes and withdrew another wand, holding it up for Harry to see. "Do you recognize this wand, Mr. Potter?"

Harry did. He had seen it before, held it before himself. It was the Elder Wand, the wand Harry had won from Dumbledore just before his death at the hands of Voldemort. He had gone to fight Voldemort with that wand, defeating him, and then placed it with Dumbledore's body when he was buried, decades ago. "You took that from Dumbledore's tomb," he said, anger tightening his voice.

"Of course I did," Voldemort smiled his cold smile again. "And if you recall, Mr. Potter, I took your wand from you before handing you over to the Ministry for killing Mr. Monroe. Thus, according to wandlore, I am the true master of the Elder Wand, the unbeatable wand of wizarding legend."

Harry didn't respond. Harry had used it in the past, even against Voldemort, but he had given it up, putting it in the tomb of his former Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, out of respect. To have it used against him now, when it was so critical he defeat Voldemort, was a daunting prospect.

But— "Owning the Elder Wand doesn't give you an automatic win," he reminded the Dark wizard. "Dumbledore won against it — Grindelwald lost even though he had the Elder Wand."

"You and I are not Dumbeldore and Grindelwald, Mr. Potter," Voldemort sneered. "Grindelwald kept a dark secret, one that only a very few have ever known about, and one I learned of only a few decades ago, when he was still alive and in Nurmengard. Would you care to guess what that secret was?"

But Harry already knew. "Grindelwald had a Horcrux," he said. "Dumbledore knew when he went to fight him, he hadn't yet found out what it was or where it was hidden. Dumbledore couldn't risk killing him only to have him return years later, like you did."

Voldemort shook his head. "That was true, but that was not the real reason Dumbeldore could not kill him. Have you not realized, Mr. Potter, that Dumlbedore was in love with Gellert Grindlewald for decades, since the time they were boys, only to be rejected in favor of Dumbledore's brother Aberforth?"

That news rocked Harry to his core, but— "And so what? Wizard society has been mostly accepting of relationships between same-sex couples."

"But Dumbledore could not allow his feelings for Grindelwald to become public knowledge," Voldemort pointed out with a sneering smile. "Especially after Grindelwald's defeat in 1945. It would have raised much suspicion against him and his teaching activities at Hogwarts; he had already resigned himself to an ambition no greater than becoming its Headmaster — he could not risk losing that! He might never even have fought Grindelwald at all but for — well, I could say he was visited by a phoenix just as pressure for him to fight the Dark wizard terrorizing Europe was reaching its peak."

"How could you know that?" Harry asked.

"As Head Boy of Hogwarts, one hears a great many rumors about what happens to the more well-known and powerful witches and wizards at the school," Voldemort answered. "There were eye-witnesses to Dumbledore's fight with Grindelwald, they say that after Grindelwald fell, Dumbledore did as well, and would have died of exhaustion had the phoenix he eventually called Fawkes not shed its tears for him." Voldemort looked disgusted, as if Dumbledore's weakness had saved his life, not his strengths.

"So, Mr. Potter, you should understand now that you have no chance against me this time," Voldemort finished. "A rational man, faced with certain death, would choose to retreat rather than engage in a futile endeavor that will ultimatel end him.

"However, it seems as if you will _not_ retreat," Voldemort continued, staring at Harry across the distance that separated them. "You seem to think you must, what is that old expression, play for all the marbles."

"Don't _you_?" Harry responded. "You want me dead just as I want you dead. I don't think either of us can escape this moment. Besides, you've done a lot of harm to those close to me, and that will undoubtedly continue unless I stop you. While rationality can tell me what my chances of winning the fight are, pure rationality can't tell me what I _ought_ to do. The answer to that is, I ought to make an end of you."

Voldemort nodded, a grave look on his face. He held out the wand before him, poised and ready to strike. "Now, Mr. Potter — are _you_ ready?"

Harry glanced over at Monroe, standing a safe distance away in the gathering night. There was a concerned expression on the wizard's face — he had seen the Elder Wand in Voldemort's hand as well. Nevertheless, Monroe nodded encouragingly at him. _You can do this_, the words seemed to form in Harry's head.

Harry took a deep breath, hoping Monroe was right and his encouragement wasn't misplaced. "I am ready," he said.

**~ooo~**

THE DUEL BEGINS —

Harry had fought Voldemort before, he knew what to expect. But the last time they'd fought, it was _Harry_ that had the unbeatable wand. Even as he told Voldemort he was ready, he was erecting shields around himself in preparation for the onslaught of spells that would be coming at him shortly. Before he finished speaking, Voldemort attacked.

Cutting spells, blasting spells, transmogrification spells that could remove eyes or hands or legs splashed, exploded, or bounced off of Harry's shields as they sought out an opening, however small, in his defenses. Harry kept up his shields, sending out an offensive spell only every so often, to be sure Voldemort was keeping his own shields up.

Voldemort was playing with him, Harry knew, testing the Elder Wand to see how it reacted against him. Dumbledore had told him the Wand would not allow harm to come to its true master; its spells would miss or have no lasting effect, or simply not respond if the spell was deadly enough, like the Killing Curse. But the wand Voldemort held seemed to be throwing its full power against Harry — his shields deflected its spells only with difficulty. Harry could not be sure how long he could maintain a defensive strategy. At some point, he would have to attack.

And try to beat the unbeatable wand.

**~ooo~**

THE DUEL, TIME: T PLUS 50 MINUTES —

The snow in the area of the duel had become pock-marked with holes, slashes, gouges from deflected curses. Multicolored arcs and bolts of light streamed back and forth between Harry and Voldemort, mostly from the latter toward the former, and Harry stoically maintained the status quo of immovable object against irresistible force. Apparation was no longer an option; it expended too much energy to flit around the battlefield, and contending with the discomfort of Apparition on top of spell defense was too distracting. Both men stood in place, unmoving, while their spells hacked, chewed and stabbed at each other.

Voldemort's spells had steadily gained in ferocity. He had begun casting different forms of shield drills — spells designed to poke holes in shield charms in order to let another spell pass. Harry had anticipated that and cast multiple –layer shields, letting the damaged shields fail and vanish and erecting a new layer of defense behind them. The shadow spells followed soon after — spells that weakened shields in specific locations, draining energy from the wizard maintaining them. Harry answered these attacks with a spell he had created specifically to counter thm: the Anti-Shadow Hex would merge with a shadow spell and, like matter and antimatter, the two would annihilate each other. It also damaged any nearby shields, but that was better than having energy drained from your body.

Harry began throwing out attacks of his own. He tried forks — casting two spells almost simultaneously, the first to draw Voldemort's attention away from the second spell, the one he actually intended reach its target, but Voldemort deflected them both easily. Several more forks, from several different angles, fared no better. They seemed to almost amuse Voldemort, for when his face was lit by the glare of spells bursting around him a small smile showed on his lips.

After a while Harry resumed his defensive posture, wondering what else he could try that might slip through Voldemort's shields, but nothing was coming to mind. He would have to do something soon.

**~ooo~**

THE DUEL, TIME: T PLUS 3 HOURS AND 5 MINUTES —

In over three hours of battle no words had yet passed between the two combatants. This duel had gone on far longer than any of the other fights Harry and Voldemort had engaged in. Malfoy's body did not look tired in the least, while Harry keenly felt the aches and tiredness that preceded exhaustion. Spells continued to crash and splatter and explode against Harry's shields, popping or shattering them, and Harry continued to erect more shields to replace them, every so often sending a spell of his own Voldemort's way, most often the Disarming Charm, as it was of relatively low energy cost.

A victory for Harry no longer seemed in sight. That realization had been a bitter truth for Harry to accept, but he could not keep this up much longer. He would falter, would fail to restore a shield in time, and one of Voldemort's spells would find its mark. Then all of his shields would come down and he would be vulnerable. Then, and only then, Harry's intuition told him, would Voldemort use the Killing Curse on him. He wanted Harry beaten and knowing his death was coming, wanted him to see the green flash of light that would mean the end of him.

Harry would not accept that, however. He would fight on, parrying and deflecting curses, until his wand dropped from his nerveless fingers and he passed out from sheer exhaustion, as Grindelwald had eventually succumbed during his famous battle with Dumbledore. Quarter was not to be given or received, but Harry would fight on until he could literally fight no more.

Voldemort may have sensed something of that in Harry's face, for he paused and spoke the first words since the battle began. "Thinking about your death, Mr. Potter? You don't have much time left before I penetrate your defenses."

"I have all the time in the world," Harry responded, then realized who had said something similar to that to him earlier that very day. His attention diverted momentarily to where Monroe was standing; the wizard had not moved since the battle began. _Too bad we agreed you can't intervene_, Harry thought between casting Shield Charms.

_I agreed not to fight Voldemort unless you fell_, Monroe's voice came back in his head. _But helping _you_ was never forbidden — if you want my help now, you just have to ask_.

Just then one of Voldemort's drill spells collided with Harry's inner shield, shattering it completely. _Hell YES I want it_! Harry's mind shouted. His wand twitched and the blue light of a shield blazed around him, deflecting a Cutting Curse and a Stunning Spell cast by Voldemort just in time. Harry heard a low grunt from Voldemort — he had not expected Harry to stop both those spells.

Whatever Monroe had done, Harry felt better now, more confident and more energized than he had only moments earlier. The fatigue that had accumulated over the past three hours was gone — he now felt like Voldemort looked: fresh, vital, and willing to battle as long as it took to win.

**~ooo~**

THE DUEL, TIME: T PLUS 7 HOURS AND 38 MINUTES —

Sometime after the seventh hour of their duel Voldemort, perhaps realizing that Harry was not going to succumb to exhaustion as quickly as he had expected, had redoubled his efforts to penetrate Harry's shields, casting spells in such quick succession that Harry was nearly hidden from view with the light of shields flaring and failing, and immediately replaced with new ones. Harry himself felt as if he was in some kind of fugue, that he was no longer Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres-Granger, but had become simply the Boy-Who-Lived, who 35 years earlier had stared unknowingly as the Dark Lord pointed his wand at Harry's forehead and cast the Killing Curse at him, which rebounded and destroyed the Dark Lord's body and blasted the house around him and Harry, though Harry remained unharmed in his crib.

Parry. Riposte. Deflect. Harry's wand moved with precision, even after more than seven hours of battle. He anticipated Voldemort's spells now; his opponent had fallen into a pattern of curses, jinxes and hexes that Malfoy's body was unconsciously telegraphing. Could it be that one of the other personalities in Voldemort's head had temporarily assumed command of the battle, to give Voldemort himself a chance to rest, a respite from the constant battle? Harry did not think Voldemort would allow that, but the tenor of the attacks had changed. Perhaps he was seeing David Monroe's fighting style now? It did not matter to Harry. He simply kept up his defenses, letting the other wizard expend his energy while Harry conserved his own.

**~ooo~**

THE DUEL, TIME: T PLUS 10 HOURS AND 47 MINUTES —

Voldemort's attacks had begun to slow down, though they retained the ferocity of his initial attacks. Harry scarcely wondered at that — this battle had gone on for a ridiculously long time. Had even Dumbledore's battle with Grindelwald lasted this long? Harry didn't know; Dumbledore had said only that it had taken long, long hours for him to fight that Dark Lord to the point of exhaustion, when Grindelwald fell and Dumbledore with him, even more exhausted than he, exhausted to death had Fawkes not saved him.

Their battle had continued through the night; it was now sometime in the early morning hours, with the moon beginning to go down and the sun soon to emerge in the east. The space between the two men had been cleared of snow by the spells that had passed between them and spattered off their shields. It was smoking, too — the energy they had spent on this battle should have left them both dead — but whatever spell Monroe had used to sustain him, Harry had begun to feel his energy waning once again. Voldemort looked ready to fall over, but he continued to throw spells against Harry's shields, testing them, cracking them, while Harry dropped the weakened ones and erected new ones to replace them. How much longer would he last before he fell over, utterly spent, and Harry delivered the —

The what? The Killing Curse? Not his style. Would he bind Voldemort and send him, in Malfoy's body, to Nurmengard to languish as Gellert Grindelwald had for more than 60 years? He had outlived Dumbledore that way, ironically!

And what was he going to do about the bit of Voldemort inside him, the part of the Dark Lord that was somehow in the lightning scar on his forehead, that Monroe had told him about? How would he destroy _that_ without killing himself?

He would have to worry about that, he told himself, after Voldemort was defeated.

**~ooo~**

THE DUEL, TIME: T PLUS 14 HOURS AND 12 MINUTES —

"Enough," Voldemort suddenly said, lowering his wand.

_What's this_? Harry wondered, and stopped firing curses though he did not dispel his shields or completely lower his wand. "Are you giving up?" He asked Voldemort aloud, expecting some kind of trick.

"No," Voldemort said. His wand came up again, lightning fast. "_Avadakedavra_!" The green light of death burst from his wand, streaking toward Harry —

— who was suddenly gone from the spot the Killing Curse passed through, and a moment later stood next to Voldemort, inside his defenses. But instead of raising his wand, his left fist slammed into Draco Malfoy's stomach, doubling him over. Harry's left hand grabbed a handful of hair and jerked down and forward, and his knee came up into Malfoy's face, breaking his nose with a loud _crack_. Malfoy's legs buckled and he fell to the cold, wet ground. Harry finished by pointing his wand at Malfoy's stomach. "_Stupefy_!" and a red bolt slammed into the Minister, knocking him the rest of the way out.

As he bent over to pick up the Elder Wand, Monroe Apparated next to him. He leaned over to peer momentarily at the unconscious Dark Lord. "That was an interesting victory," he said. "I wonder how many wizards' duels were won by a knockout."

"Not many, I would think," Harry said. "Considering Voldemort was supposed to be quite good at martial arts, I think I just surprised him — he wasn't expecting me to attack him physically. Even I wasn't expecting to attack him physically — it just came to me when I realized he was going to cast the Killing Curse at me."

He leaned down once again to search through Voldemort's robes for his original wand, the last (okay, the _next_ to the last) Horcrux. There were a great many hidden pouches in Malfoy's robes. "That damned wand has to be in here somewhere," Harry muttered, then jerked when Monroe extended a hand and a wand-shaped object hidden within the folds of cloth glowed bright blue. He searched for the opening for nearly a minute before sighing and pointing his wand at the robe, saying, "_Diffindo_." The robes did not split, however, and Harry repeated the spell with the Elder Wand. That time it worked, and Harry held up Voldemort's yew wand. He took it in both hands and tried to snap it in half. The wand barely bent in his hands.

"It's a Horcrux, alright," he said. "I suppose you don't have any spare Basilisk venom on you, do you?"

Monroe shook his head, smiling. "Fiendfyre worked before, it should work again this time."

He pointed his wand and the yew wand shot upward in the air, stopping about 50 feet above them. "Just a short burst this time," he suggested, "and I'll throw it into the sun." Which was now just above the horizon in the east, Harry noted. Harry pointed the Elder Wand skyward, incanting the words to the curse, and thin jet of writhing flames shot upward, engulfing the wand. Harry immediately ended the spell, and the wand shot upward and eastward, passing out of view in only a few seconds, leaving a trail of flame that slowly dissipated.

Harry stood silently for several seconds, staring at the flames as they slowly disappeared, then looked back at Voldemort's unconscious host body. "It seems a bit anticlimactic now," he said, sounding disappointed. "One quick curse and that's the end of Voldemort's Horcruxes. Except," he pointed to his lightning scar, "what do I do about the bit of Voldemort that's in _me_?"

"Did you ever stop to think what that bit of Voldemort might have done for you over the years?" Monroe asked. "It's not a fragment of his soul, you know — it's an image of his mind that connected with your brain on the night he tried to kill you. That image has been wrapped up in yours since you were one. It could be the reason for your rationality as well as the high level of intelligence you've displayed throughout your life."

"Hmm," Harry said, considering that. He had deduced that Voldemort was somehow responsible for his "mysterious dark side," though he hadn't concluded it was because his mind had become mingled with Voldemort's somehow. "I don't know if I buy that, but it's an interesting hypothesis.

"However, that doesn't help me with what I should do with Voldemort _now_. I can't just let him go. I don't think I can kill him, either — Dumbledore thought he must be destroyed, not just defeated, because he thought there was no humanity left in him, and that might be true of Tom Riddle, perhaps even of Quirinus Quirrell, but I don't think David Monroe was an inherently evil person. And Draco Malfoy, for all his flaws, is little more than Voldemort's pawn right now."

"All that might be true," Monroe allowed, "but after all this time it will be impossible to distinguish in Malfoy's brain where Draco ends and Voldemort, David Monroe and Quirrell begin."

"I'm not sure what to do, then," Harry said. "If I can't let him go, and I refuse to kill him, there's no option left except put him in Nurmengard and try to keep him there for the rest of his life."

"I may have an alternate solution," Monroe said in a quiet voice.

"I don't want _you_ to kill him either, James," Harry said firmly.

"Oh, it's a little more imaginative than that," Monroe smiled. He looked down at the unconscious Voldemort. "And it would solve your problem of what to do with that bit of Voldemort kicking about in your head."

"Really, how?"

In reply Monroe pointed his open hand toward Malfoy's body for a few seconds, then said, "Cast Homenum Revelio on him."

Harry frowned, but flicked his wand at Voldemort. "Yeah, so?" he said a moment later. "It shows he's there, of course."

"Now try Venificum Revelio," Monroe suggested. Harry recognized that as the spell to identify a wizard. He cast the spell at Voldemort, then shook his head and cast it again. "What the hell?" he muttered. "I'm not getting a response. What am I doing wrong?"

"Nothing," Monroe said. "You're not getting a response because he's no longer a wizard."

Harry stared. "That can't be," he argued. "You can't turn a wizard into a Muggle any more than you can turn a Muggle into a wiz—" he cut himself off. "But — _how_? What did you do, make him forget he was a wizard? No, that can't be it — I would stil detect that he was a wizard even if he didn't remember being one."

"You can't detect him as a wizard because he's not a wizard anymore," Monroe said. "I've changed the locus in his genome that made him a wizard into the genetic combination for a Squib. While he can recognize magic and wizards for what they are, he can't access magic himself at all anymore, not even with the most powerful wand in the world. You can wake him up and test it if you like."

Harry smirked at the idea, but — "I'd rather just take him back to the Ministry and let them sort it out with Veritaserum."

"I suggest you just drop him off at the visitor entrance," Monroe said. "When they start questioning Malfoy they'll figure out what's going on, and someone will probably decide to use Veritaserum on him. After that they'll get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

"I wouldn't underestimate the Wizengamot's ability to be pigheaded about their decisions," Harry warned, "but hopefully in this case they will realize how badly they blew it." He waved his wand at Malfoy's body, floating it into an upright position, and the three of them Apparated away to London.

**~ooo~**

EPILOGUE:

Ron Weasley lay staring at the ceiling above his bed in the Janus Thickey ward on the fourth floor of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, silently cursing the pain he felt in his left arm. The arm that was no longer there because Malfoy had cursed it off him after Ron broke his nose. The Healers couldn't do anything about the pain other than inducing dreamless sleep, and they refused to provide the potion more than once per day, during the nighttime, so Ron would sleep without disturbing the other patients in the room.

Most of the other people in this ward didn't realize how bad off they were. Two of them, the Longbottoms, had been famous Aurors back in the day when You-Know-Who was terrorizing magical Britain for the first time. They had been tortured by Death Eaters, tortured so horribly that they had been driven insane and no longer knew who they were or who anyone else was. Ron felt sorry for them because they had sacrificed everything to protect others and their country.

The other permanent resident he didn't have my sympathy for, given what a perfectly wretched arse he was. Gilderoy Lockhart, who'd taught Defense Against the Dark Arts during Ron's second year at Hogwarts, was here because he'd tried to Obliviate a student at Hogwarts at the end of the school year, only to have that spell somehow turned back on him, erasing most of his memories permanently. That was the only time during his seven years at Hogwarts that Ron could remember really feeling grateful to Harry Potter, who'd been the student Lockhart ambushed and attacked. Whatever Harry had done to deflect Lockhart's spell back at him had also somehow given Harry many of Lockhart's memories, and they showed a man who had spent decades collecting other people's memories then erasing theirs, so he could write books pretending their exploits were his own.

Ron sighed gustily, looking around. The reason he was in this ward was because it was kept locked at all times; otherwise he would be out the door in a heartbeat and back at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, arm or no arm. The Healers wanted to keep him here for "observation," they said. Ron knew that was a lie — they were afraid he would do something rash if they let him go. They probably weren't entirely wrong; Ron didn't know what he'd do himself if he could get out of here. He might go after Malfoy, though that would probably end badly. Ron didn't much care how it would end, though, if he could curse one or two limbs off Malfoy before they got him.

"Hello, Ron." Ron jumped, startled. Two men were standing next to his bed, though he hadn't heard the ward doors being unlocked or any footsteps moving toward him. Even more surprising, it was Harry Potter and another man Ron didn't recognize. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

"Harry, what are you doing here?" Ron wanted to know. "Aren't you afraid the Ministry will —"

"Everything is fine," Harry interrupted. "I've been cleared of all charges. So has Ginny, and your brothers as well. Malfoy gave a full confession to his part in framing Ginny and me."

"And who's this, then?" Ron asked, nodding toward Monroe. "He looks familiar…"

"I'm James Monroe, the man Harry supposedly killed," Monroe answered.

Ron's eyes went wide. "I thought I recognized you!" he said. He looked back at Harry. "So everything's cleared up, then?"

Harry nodded. "Ginny's back home with your mother, recovering. Your mum thinks she and Dean will work things out between them."

"Yeah, well —" Ron shrugged slightly. "Mum's always thought the best of Dean. We'll see how that goes. What about Fred and George, then? They cleared of breaking Ginny out of Hogwarts?"

"The Wizengamot ruled their actions were justified by unusual circumstances," Monroe said. "Apparently Voldemort coming back from the dead once again was enough to jerk them out of their comfort zones. They even voted to reinstate Hermione back as Minister of Magic if she wants the job back."

Ron looked at Harry. "…Does she?"

Harry nodded. "We talked about it," he said quietly. "She decided to go back until things are running smoothly again, then she'll announce her retirement. I think she wants to go teach at Hogwarts, actually. She wrote an owl — wouldn't tell me who it was for, but it looked like she was writing Neville's name on the envelope when she addressed it."

"Huh," Ron said, noncommittally, wondering at the same time if he could wrangle a professorship at the school teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. "Well, I hope she gets what she wants, whatever it is."

"How are you doing, Ron?" Harry asked interestedly. "Everything all right, then?"

"As well as can be, I guess," Ron said, unconsciously lifting his left shoulder for a moment. "Not sure how much use I'll be around the shop, now."

Harry and Monroe glanced at one another. "That's what we came to talk about," Monroe said. "How would you like your arm back?"

Ron gave him a puzzled look. "Too right I'd like my arm back!" he agreed quickly. "But it was cursed off — the Healers can't do a bloody thing about it. His puzzlement turned to anger. "What the hell are you asking me something like that for, anyway — you know they can't fix this!"

"Well, when you wake up from this dream," Monroe assured him. "Harry and I both think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

Ron shook his head. "I just woke up a few minutes ago," he said. "I only get one Sleeping Potion a day," he added, bitterly. "This damn arm hurts, and it isn't even there anymore! Not even Harry bloody Potter is going to tell me I'm dreaming this…" he suddenly slumped back onto the bed, snoring softly.

Harry looked at the stump of Ron's arm, frowning a bit with sympathy pain. "Well," he said to Monroe. "Do your thing."

**~ooo~**

"Mr. Weasley? Mr. Weasley?"

Ron abruptly stopped snoring and opened his eyes. Two Healers and their assistants were standing around his bed staring at him. "What — what?" he mumbled, trying to wake up. He felt groggy, like the Sleeping Potion he'd taken last night hadn't fully worn off yet. "What's going on?"

"How do you feel, Mr. Weasley?" one of the Healers asked.

Ron pushed himself half up on his right elbow (the only elbow he had now, he reminded himself bitterly). "You woke me up to ask me that?" he snapped testily. "What the hell kind of bloody fool question is that?"

"We found a note on your chart this morning," the other Healer said. He held up a scrap of parchment. "It said, 'check on left arm regrowth status of Weasley, Ron.' No one on duty knew what that meant, so we came to see you."

"I don't know what it means, either," Ron growled. He jerked the stump of his left arm up off the bed. "My arm can't be regrown, it's been cursed — oh, bloody hell, what's this?" He stared at his left arm. Below where the stump should be was a wrapping of bandages around what appeared to be an elbow, forearm and hand. "Where'd that come from?" he asked, loudly.

"We don't know," both Healers said. They had come around to his left side and were poking and prodding gently at the bandages. "Feels like a real arm under there," one of them said. The other nodded silently.

Ron was watching all of this _very_ carefully. "Well, it feels real to me too," he said. "Let's unwrap it and find out!"

"But don't you _know_ what happened?" one of the assistants asked. "Who put the bandages on your arm?"

"Look it, I didn't even _have_ an arm last night when I went to sleep!" Ron retorted. "I have no idea what all this is about? You people don't tell me anything about what's going on outside this ward!"

"Oh, that's right!" one of the Healers suddenly said. "You haven't heard what happened yesterday!"

"What happened?" Ron asked, his bandaged arm temporarily forgotten.

"Minister Malfoy turned himself in yesterday," the Healer said. "He made a full confession — said he was really You-Know-Who and that he'd taken over Minister Malfoy's body, that he'd killed the man Harry Potter was accused of killing, _and_ the three Aurors Ginny Thomas was sent to Azkaban for killing."

"That's not even the weirdest part!" the second Auror chimed in. "His magic is gone! He can't even perform the simplest spell now! He said he must've overloaded his magical ability somehow and burnded it out."

"That's bloody wild!" Ron said. "So what're they going to do with him?"

"They don't know yet," one of the assistants said. "But Minister Granger-Potter said he wouldn't be going to Azkaban."

"Minister Granger-Potter?" Ron blurted. "You mean Hermione's back as Minister now?" This sounded eerily familiar — had he dreamed something about this last night?

"Oh yes," the assistant said. "They practically forced her to come back, the way I read it. She said she would until things were running smoothly again, then she'd retired."

_Something familiar about _that_, too_, Ron thought. "So what did Harry Potter say about all this?" he asked, his tone cooler than before.

"Nobody knows," the last assistant said, shrugging. "He broke out of Azkaban the night before Malfoy turned himself in, but the Wizengamot voted to drop all charges against him anyway."

"Huh," Ron grunted, not knowing what else to ask. He glanced at his bandaged arm. "Maybe we can get back to this, then…"

The two Healers began unwrapping the arm. They started at the top, unwrapping his bicep, which looked completely fine — there was no discernible scar where the limb had been severed — continued down the forearm, and finally unwrapped his hand and fingers. Everything seemed just fine, Ron opened and closed his hand with no problem.

The first Healer was waving his wand over Ron's arm, shaking his head and looking at his fellow Healer. "Absolutely no trace of a wound," he said. "It's like the arm was never removed. I can't understand it."

"Problem?" Ron hadn't been listening to the Healers, he was too busy being happy at his arm being back on.

"No, and that's the problem," the Healer said. "I can't even tell that your arm had ever been removed."

"Good," Ron smiled. "Tell whoever put it back on he or she did an excellent job!"

"But that's the point!" the second Healer spoke up. "Nobody can do something like this! It's completely beyond our skill!"

"Really?" Ron said. The dream he vaguely remembered having was coming into sharper focus now. He had been talking with Harry Potter and James Monroe. They told him he was dreaming and when he woke up he would be pleasantly surprised. They'd told him other things, too, things about Malfoy and his family and Hermione, but had they been in his dream or was he just confusing the dream with what the Healers had just told him? He held up his arm. "Well, somebody did _something_, because my arm's back on now."

"We want you to stay another day or so until we can figure this out," the first Healer said. "This could be very important…"

At that moment the ward doors opened and another staff member stuck her head in. "Mr. Weasley's sister is here," she said. "It is okay for her to visit?"

"No," both Healers spoke at once.

"Yes," Ron said over them. "Yes, she can."

The point became moot as Ginny pushed her way past the staff member. "Yes, I can!" she said loudly, then stopped short as she saw Ron. "Ron… your arm..."

"Yeah, it grew back," Ron said, grinning. "Good as new."

"It couldn't have —" one of the assistants began.

"Get out," Ginny said, jerking a thumb at the door. "I want to talk to my brother in private."

"But —" one of the Healers tried to object.

"Out!" Ginny said, brandishing a new wand. "Go on!"

The Healers and their assistants beat a hasty retreat. "You too!" Ginny said to an orderly delivering a tray of food to one of the patients. The orderly took one look at Ginny's expression, dropped the tray on the patient's bedside table, and got out of there.

Then, once they were alone — "Oh my god, Ron!" Ginny said, giving Ron a long hug. "We thought your arm was lost forever! How'd they put it back on?"

"Hell, Gin, they couldn't even tell me!" Ron exclaimed. "I just woke up this morning and there it was, wrapped in bandages, good as new, like a late Christmas present!"

"Well, however it got back on, I'm glad it's back!" Ginny said, relieved.

"Even more relieved than being out of Azkaban?" Ron pressed teasingly.

"Well I wouldn't go that far," Ginny said evenly, then giggled. "Oh! Did you hear that Hermione's Minister of Magic again —?"

"Yeah, they told me," Ron nodded. "They said Malfoy actually confessed to framing you for those murders. Why would he do that?"

"I dunno," Ginny shrugged. "The _Prophet_ had a theory about it, though: they think Malfoy — oh, he's really Voldemort, by the way! — panicked when his magic powers fizzled out when he was performing whatever Dark ritual burned them out, and didn't know what else to do. He has no experience living as a Muggle, so he ran to the Ministry, gave himself up, and confessed everything."

"That sounds like typical _Prophet_ bullshit," Ron said dismissively. "They're just making stuff up again."

"Well what's _your_ theory, Mr. I-Know-More-Than-The –Ministry-of-Magic?" Ginny challenged, though she was secretly thrilled Ron was arguing with her just like old times.

"I had a dream about Harry Potter just before I woke up," Ron told her. "And that Monroe bloke, you remember him? The guy Harry began hanging out a lot with last summer? I think they had something to do with it."

"Ron, we haven't even seen since Harry since he disappeared from Azkaban the night before last," Ginny pointed out. "And Monroe _is_ dead; Malfoy — I mean Volde— er, You-Know-Who — confessed to killing him."

"Whatever," Ron said, rubbing his head. "Let's just get out of here. They want me to stay for some 'tests,' even though they can't tell me what happened to my arm, but I'll be damned if I'm going to stay here any longer than I have to."

"Okay," Ginny smiled, reaching into a pouch under her coat. She pulled a bag out of it and handed it to Ron. He looked inside; it was a complete change of clothes plus a winter jacket.

"Bless you!" Ron said, hugging her with one arm. He stood and reached for the hospital robe he was wearing, then stopped. "Er — you might want to look away while I get out of this."

"Oh for Merlin's sake," Ginny groused. "We used to go skinny dipping in the pond in the orchard before it dried up!" she reminded him.

"Sorry, only Luna gets to look at my junk nowadays," Ron told her. "By the way, why didn't she come?"

"She insisted she had to go into work today," Ginny said, moving to the opposite side of the bed and facing away from Ron. "But she said you were definitely coming home today, so we should stop by the shop on our way home and surprise her."

"It'll take more than that to surprise her," Ron mused, pulling the robe over his head and throwing it on the bed. He reached into the bag, trying to find some shorts —

"Pardon me," an unfamiliar voice said in his ear. Ron jerked away and turned to stare at the intruder. It was Gilderoy Lockhart, holding a plate of bangers and mash in front of him. "Would you have any Grey Poupon?"

"What the hell?!" Ron shouted, in shock. Ginny had turned around as well, her wand drawn. See Ron standing there naked and Lockhart with a perplexed look on his face, she laughed.

"Not funny!" Ron yelled, covering himself. He whirled back to Lockhart. "Of course I don't have any bleedin' Grey whatever-the-hell-you-said! Go back and eat your breakfast!"

"You don't have to be so surly," Lockhart muttered, picking up a sausage off his plate and moving away as he munched on it.

"Bloody nutter," Ron muttered, grabbing some pants out of the bag and jamming his feet into them. "And you're not helping!" he said over his shoulder as Ginny continued to giggle. He snatched a T-shirt out of the bag and threw it on. There were socks and trainers in the bag but Ron didn't bother with the socks. Or even with tying the trainers. "Let's go," he said sourly. "The sooner we're out of here, the better. Besides, I want to go see how Hermione's doing after all that."

After getting back his wand from Patient Inventory and winning their arguments with the staff, who were steadfastly bent on keeping him in the hospital (along with the help of a few well-placed Bat-Bogey Hexes from Ginny), the two of them Apparated to the visitors' entrance of the Ministry and stopped at the Information and Security station.

"Sorry," Munch told them. "The Minister didn't come in this morning. She left word she would be working from home today."

"Fine," Ron said. "We can go there," he told Ginny.

"No, you can't," Munch informed them. "She also left word that she wasn't to be disturbed today. At all. By _anyone_," he added firmly.

Ron said nothing, but he had a mutinous look on his face. "Just let her have today, Ron," Ginny told him. "You can see her tomorrow, I'll come with and make sure you get in."

"You'll come with?" Ron looked at her, mildly affronted. "You think I can't get in to see her on my own?"

"Oh, I'm sure you can," Ginny said calmly. "But she knows you won't act too squirrelly if I'm around."

Ron snorted. "Fine," he said. "Tomorrow it is, then," he said reluctantly, then looked at her askance. "Up for a bit of breakfast, then?" he asked. "Seeing Lockhart's breakfast reminded me it's been a while since I've eaten."

"Okay," Ginny said, smiling at her brother again. If Ron was hungry, he was pretty much back to normal.

**~ooo~**

EPILOGUE TWO:

Harry and Hermione sprawled comfortably across the sofa in their apartment residence sipping at their morning tea. Hermione was nestled comfortably against Harry's shoulder, quietly basking in the glow of their first night together since Harry went to Azkaban more than a month before.

"Are you thinking of going back to work tomorrow?" Harry asked her, his eyes closed, enjoying this moment of perfect peace and contentment.

Hermione sipped at her tea before answering. "Well, yes," she said, matter-of-factly. "You know Malfoy — or Voldemort — _whoever_ — left the Ministry a perfect mess. I'd like to get it back in shape PDQ so I can get out of there as soon —"

"You can stay home one more day," Harry suggested.

Hermione sighed. "I probably could. But every day I take off now means three more days I'll have to stay before I can retire."

"All work and no play makes Jean a dull girl," Harry paraphrased.

"Not the way _we_ play," she giggled. "You're a nasty man, you know that?"

"Well, you know what prison can do to a man," Harry shrugged. "I have needs."

Hermione snorted laughter. "So you've shown me. I'm just glad they didn't put you and Sirius Black in the same cell together — no telling what might have come from _that_!"

"Well, Sirius said he didn't bend that way," Harry told her. "He said he and Pettigrew were never lovers — that was just Peter's wishful thinking."

"Interesting," Hermione said. "So what will he do now that he's exonerated?"

"Dunno," Harry murmured, sipping at his tea. "He'll probably go live at Grimmauld Place, at least until he finds someplace he'd rather be."

"And what about you?" Hermione asked him. "Any place you'd rather be?"

"Nowhere but here," Harry said firmly. But a distant expression came over his features. "Although…"

"Now don't you tease me like that!" Hermione said warningly. "You've already promised not to go back to work for at least a week! Let Ginny and your board of directors run TBC Enterprises for a change…"

"I didn't mean that," Harry said, downing the last of his tea. He let the cup float from his hand to the saucer on the coffee table. "I told you what went on with me and James Monroe, right?"

"Right," Hermione agreed, becoming as serious as Harry seemed to have gotten. "You said no one else knows he's even alive."

"Well, he made me an offer before he, well, 'left,'" Harry said. "He's more powerful than any wizard — a _lot_ more powerful, and he offered to let me share in that power if I would leave Earth with him, travel to other universes and do — well, whatever it is he does."

Hemione was silent for some time, staring at him. "And you turned that down?" she asked, incredulous.

"Sure," he nodded.

"But why would you do that?" she exclaimed. "You said he was some kind of post-Singularity being. You've wanted to see the Singularity for decades now! I can't believe you would give all that up for — for what?"

Harry was smiling gently at her. "For you, love."

Hermione smiled back at him, her face as radiant as the sun. "For me? Harry, that's — that's the most wonderful thing you've ever said to me."

"Well, I am a wonderful person, you know," Harry acknowledged.

"You know what I mean," she said seriously, and Harry nodded agreemnent.

"Do you want some more tea?" Hermione asked, pointing to his empty cup.

"Please," Harry said. A strainer on the tea service floated onto his cup and the teapot tipped, pouring hot tea into the cup. The strainer floated off the cup and onto a plate; two teaspoons of sugar poured themselves into the cup and stirred it. The cup floated into the air and into Harry's hand. He sipped at it and smiled appreciatively. "Thank you, love."

"You're welcome," Hermione replied, beaming. Her expression became thoughtful. "You know, I was wondering…"

"About what?"

"Well, what do you think it's like, being someone like Monroe? From what you've told me he's much more powerful than any wizard. And those Magical Source crystals? They're what give us magical ability, right?"

"Right."

"But they're not really magic, they're just very sophisticated Muggle technology, technology that comes from the future."

"Right."

"So if they stop working, there won't be any magic anymore, right?"

"Yes, that's true," Harry agreed. "But they'd all have to fail at once, otherwise the crystals that are still working would repair the others."

"Do you think it would be possible to create a Source of Magic crystal for everyone?" Hermione asked. "If everybody had one, then there'd be no Muggles and wizards, just, well, people with advanced technology."

"Actually," Harry grinned at her like the Cheshire cat. "That's what I plan to do someday — find a way to make those crystals something anyone can use. Now that I know they exist, I will be doing some experimenting to see if I can find a way to access them directly. From there, if I can find a way to reprogram them, we might be able to make them replicate themselves in a smaller form, something each person can carry around with them."

"That would be amazing," Hermione said enthusiastically. "But — will everyone be ready to use that kind of ability, that kind of power?"

Harry looked solemn. "That will be a concern. Merlin created his Interdict because he feared that wizards were becoming too powerful too fast. He set an upper end on how powerful magic can be transferred from generation to generation. Making magic universal might cause another problem like that, so we will have to be careful how we introduce that into wizarding and Muggle culture. Even Monroe told me before I turned down his offer to join him that I wouldn't be given power equal to his own until I learned how to use it wisely. And he wanted to know if I wanted you to come with him and me."

"Did he?" Hermione's expression became pensive. "What did you tell him?"

Harry looked a bit discomfited by that question. "Well, I'm afraid I kind of spoke for you on that point. I didn't think you'd want to come with us even if I decided to go — that suddenly being a person who could travel between dimensions and control energies we can barely imagine right now would not make you happy unless you could use it to help everyone, and Monroe said he hardly reveals himself to anyone anymore. I thought that being around someone like that would gall you to no end. But I knew that if I went I'd want you to come with, so I decided to stay here as well."

"Hmm." Hermione was giving him a piercing look. "That was presumptive on your part, speaking for me like that, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was," Harry lowered his head. "Sorry."

She reached out and rubbed him gently on the shoulder. "But in this case you're exactly right. I would not want to merely observe, I'd want to help everyone I could. I probably wouldn't like it if Monroe didn't act the way I thought he should. So it's better that I'm here and helping to put the Ministry back in order, and that you're working to give magic to everyone, not just wizards." She leaned forward and kissed him. He put an arm around her and kissed her back.

**~ooo~**

EPILOGUE THREE:

Harry and Monroe watched, invisible and intangible, as Harry and Hermione kissed. Monroe had a somewhat wry expression on his face.

"Well, you were right," he said to Harry. "She likely would have turned down an offer to join us even if 'you' were going."

"Yes…" Harry watched himself and Hermione kissing. "I just hope I haven't done something I'll regret."

Monroe smiled. "Even if you end up regretting your decision to join me, Harry, you can take comfort in the fact that you also made the right decision for you and her." He pointed to Harry and Hermione. "Not many people get the opportunity to have their cake and eat it, too."

Harry nodded agreement. Monroe had created an exact double of Harry Potter-Evans-Verres (himself) and gave him the power to control matter down to the atomic level — a technology they were just beginning to understand and make progress on at his company, a.k.a. molecular nanotechnology.

Harry's brain capacity had also been expanded to orders of magnitude greater than human. He could understand how things worked at the molecular level — even his own up-until-now human body. It wasn't anywhere near the level of technology and reality that Monroe himself commanded, but it had taken Monroe over a hundred years to progress from a bog-standard human to what he was today — a self-described "Power," a being capable of altering space, time and reality itself.

"I wonder how things will go here now that normal-Harry knows about the Source crysals," Harry mused. "He _will_ try to hack them, you know."

"He'll probably succeed if he proceeds cautiously," Monroe said. "The crystals are femtotechnology-level devices — only a level above where you are now, though the potential for advancement is a thousand times greater than nanotech. It could take most people 100 to 150 years to crack the crystals' code, but Harry could possibly do it in 30 or 40."

"I'd bet I do it in 25," Harry said. "Maybe we can come back after 25 years have passed here and see if I was right?"

"Why not?" Monroe grinned. "It may be in 25 years that you'll have the ability to return here on your own."

"Do you really think so?" Harry asked, curiously.

"I guess we'll see," Monroe replied. "Just don't expect things to happen like — _that_." Monroe snapped his fingers as he said the last word.

"Very funny," Harry muttered. But there was something he was still curious about. "So what _will_ we be doing as we travel from universe to universe?"

"Whatever you want," Monroe told him. "At least, if I don't have something better for us to do."

"Alright, then, what have _you_ been doing in all these universes you keep hopping around in?"

"Mostly visiting universes with you in them," Monroe said, candidly. "Or universes you _had_ been in, until Voldemort killed you."

Harry looked nonplussed. "That doesn't sound very heroic of me," he complained. "Don't I ususally beat Voldemort and win the day like the hero of the story should do?"

Monroe shook his head slowly. "Sorry, Harry. In 99 times out of 100 universes Voldemort kills you, forces you into hiding, or drags the war on for years, even decades sometimes. Just look at the universe we visited where you died on Halloween night of 1981 — that's a good example."

"Yeah… about that," Harry said, ponderingly. "I was thinking we might go back to that universe and have another go at that Voldemort."

Monroe raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to go A.K. on me, are you?"

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"Never mind, it's a long story. I'll tell you sometime over a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. Let's go see about that Voldemort."

The two men vanished from this universe, leaving the still-normal Harry and Hermione alone and planning their future together.

**~ooo~**

The End


End file.
